Needful Things

Kings scariest villain yet. Ten thousand times scarier than Pennywise.

FALSE

A nearly perfect read until the last 10-15 pages. Not a great ending but certainly not bad enough to drop any stars. This just jumped right into my top three King novels.

This book is nuts.

Stephen King is hit or miss for me. Unfortunately this one falls into the later. While I enjoyed this book at first, after a while it just grew so repetitive. Go to the shop, buy something then owe a favor.....one hundred pages later go to the shop, buy something then owe a favor....one hundred pages later.....you get the drift. A serious round of editing could have chopped out unecesary bits and brought the action much quicker. I think the whole bit with the church groups could have been left out entirely. And I must confess by the 400s I was skipping forward to Alan's parts or Patricia's. I didnt really care about any other character and there were certainly enough to read about. I also couldn't comprehend the events towards the end. How did certain characters suddenly attain power? And what was the point of introducing poison? It did not add to the story line. Bottom line is, this book felt like it was full of filler and not enough decent story.

4.5/5
One of Kings better novels. Gaunt is probably one of my favorite Stephen King villains.

This was the OK'est book. Gaunt was a great antagonist. That was about it though.

Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐

As an audiobook it was very entertaining. I can imagine it to be a bit slow at times had I read it myself. The ending was very King-esque: kinda random and anticlimactic.

I felt like the story lost a lot of weight due to the fact that people were basically in a trance when doing the pranks for Gaunt. It wasn't really about how far people would go to fulfil their hearts' desire. Though the ending felt like exactly that was what King intended the story to be. And it just wasn't.

So instead of a deep story criticising consumerism or whatever – which it could've been – it was just a pulpy, entertaning novel. That's fine, I like that, but let's drop the pretence, I'd say. ^^

As usual with a Stephen King novel it's about 400 pages too long. Seriously if you cut this down to 300 pages or less I think this story would be better. King was a must read for me and the books I've read after Pet Sematary up to this one of his career have been so boring and slow. The story is good and ominous with a cool villain but just too much filler for me

“Needful Things”, que no Brasil recebeu o título “Trocas Macabras”, é um livro excepcional, que demonstra mais uma vez o talento de Stephen King em contar histórias. A infinidade de personagens apresentados e a forma como as histórias, dramas e conflitos de cada um deles se entrelaça aos poucos e vai culminando num clima de horror crescente é sensacional.

Eu já havia lido em algum lugar que a história de “Trocas Macabras” — que gira em torno da chegada de uma nova e misteriosa loja chamada “Artigos Indispensáveis” à cidade de Castle Rock, Maine e da forma como os habitantes da cidade vão se envolvendo com seu misterioso proprietário de uma forma em que suas vidas mudam completamente e definitivamente — era uma das obras primas de Stephen King. E após ter lido as quase 1000 páginas deste excelente ebook publicado pela Suma em apenas 10 dias, posso afirmar que realmente é uma obra prima. Publicada em outubro de 1991, mostra porque o autor é indiscutivelmente o mestre do terror e do suspense.

Cinco estrelas fácil. Recomendo.