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.