Revival
Ratings148
Average rating3.7
In a small New England town over half a century ago, a boy is playing with his new toy soldiers in the dirt when he looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Jamie learns later he is a man who with his beautiful wife will transform the church and the town. The men and boys are a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls, with the Reverend Jacobs -- including Jamie's sisters and mother. Then tragedy strikes, and this charismatic preacher curses God, and is banished from the shocked town. Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from age 13, he plays in bands across the country, running from his own family tragedies, losing one job after another when his addictions get the better of him. Decades later, sober and living a decent life, he and Reverend Charles Jacobs meet again in a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and the many terrifying meanings of Revival are revealed. King imbues this spectacularly rich and dark novel with everything he knows about music, addiction, and religious fanaticism, and every nightmare we ever had about death.
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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.
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