Revival

I read this because I really loved Doctor Sleep, and found 11/22/63 compelling if imperfect. So I thought King might have his groove back. Plus, everyone told me this definitely had Lovecraftian themes. Sounded good!

I found it decidedly meh. The first three-quarters of the book is cumbersome setup that utterly failed to impart a sense of building doom, eldritch horror, or any real interest for me. All the horror in that section is confined to real-life, tragic headline sorts of horror, and that may work for some people, but it's definitely not what I'm looking for in my weird fiction.

King does eventually deliver on the Lovecraftian theme, with a concept that is admittedly very horrifying. But I found it undercut by his use of one element. No spoilers, but he did something that he literally wrote about as a weak point in horror in Danse Macabre, and so it kind of made me laugh, rather than shudder.

If you like Lovecraft, King's short stories “Jerusalem's Lot,” “N,” and even “Crouch End” are far superior, in my humble opinion.

It's been a few months since I read Revival and I still find myself thinking about it. This is the kind of book that crawls into your mind and finds a home there, rearing its wonderfully ugly head on occasion to remind you of the horrors contained within its pages. Most of my favorite King books are from his “heyday” in the '70s and '80s, but I think this one might just be lying in wait, ready to dethrone It as my all time favorite. Absolutely required reading for any horror fan.

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com

I was really disappointed with this book. It was slow, boring and I didn't care for the characters. It felt like it would have worked better as a novella rather than a full length story. However, the final 30 pages were fantastic. Like classic terrifying Stephen King. I was told that the ending was very H. P. Lovecraft however I haven't read any of his work so cannot confirm this. But this ending gave me a lot of trouble in trying to rate the book. While the end is brilliant it still does not – in my opinion – make paying full price for this book worthwhile.