'Salem's Lot
Ratings529
Average rating3.9
This is Stephen King at his best, but it's still Stephen King and it has everything you expect from him.
That means it's entirely too long and poorly paced. The prose and dialogue aren't that great, either. There are way too many characters. There are sections told from the point of view of 20-something different characters and it's hard to keep track of who's who. And it would also be more powerful if we just saw things from the perspective of a few people.
But it also has some good mystery (or it would if the book wasn't famous) and some frightening scenes. King does a great job of building suspense and making the antagonists truly scary, especially Barlow. In the end, Barlow was a bit too easy to overpower, but Bram Stoker had the same problem with Dracula.
Overall, a good scary story that makes for a great Halloween read.
While this is obviously an earlier work, it's just a darn good little vampire story, as well as a not-subtle commentary on the evil that can lay at the base of small town communities.
Good story with fascinating characters.
It seems every Stephen King novel suffers a bit from a strange obsession with genitals and what's happening to them. I enjoyed this book, but did not enjoy reading about Ben's testicles and Ruthie's breasts.
Has a wider lens than Dracula, focusing on the vampire invasion's effect on the entire town.
King by name, king by nature.
I walked past this book at Waterstones and had to go back and take it home.
The characters King creates are second to none. They are completely flushed out and real, I don't know how he does this so easily. Each character brings something different to the table, none of them felt like filler.
The story possibly could have been a little shorter, although I didn't want it to end...so I don't know if that makes sense. The way Stephen King writes hits me so we'll. it isn't just characters that make his writing so real, it's the fact he can create a full town that feels alive and moving.
The underlying tension that constantly flows through the story is unrelenting. It doesn't harm the pacing or ever feel that it's too much. It's like a river of slowly running dread that eventually escalates into an alarmingly powerful waterfall!
4/5 stars and would have been higher but I felt the climax could have been a little better.
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I have nothing to say that I'm sure hasn't been said a thousand times before. This is a wonderfully scary book that I couldn't put down and gave me nightmares about little floating vampire boys. :)
So disappointed with this book. It was so ponderous at the start and sooo drawn out during the epilogue. Its such a shame as around the middle I started getting into the old fashioned vampire tale and got pretty invested in the main characters but all that build up was thrown away so quickly that I almost gave up on it multiple times
Super fun and surprisingly frightening at times. Moments during this where I said out loud “oh no please” and stuff like that
I absolutely loved this book, and i could not put it down. I love books with fantasy characters, and this was the first vampire book that I have read that didn't have any sort of fun and whimsical-type elements. The vampires were EVIL - there was no part of them that was nice in any way. So, horror/suspense/thriller combined with some fantasy elements; I adored it.
I've heard it's patterned after Dracula, so if you enjoyed that, I'm sure you would enjoy this. I haven't read Dracula, but it is now definitely on my to-read list.
This book was so easy to pick up and then not put down. The build-up was consistent and the tension did not let up, even when the beats of the narrative slowed. This book was terrifying and I found my fingers shaking even when reading in plain daylight. But for best results, read after midnight, after everyone else has gone to bed, when the wind is blowing just enough to make the branches scratch at your window, when the moon is peaking out from behind the clouds and illuminate your face to reflect in the glass of the window as you check outside for spooky ghoulies.
Reseña (sin spoilers) de ‘El Misterio de Salem's Lot': https://youtu.be/wrtnaNjHTYw
O busca “Morporkiano” en el buscador de YouTube.
9.5/10
This book absolutely slaps. I think it's my fourth time reading it and I am just enraptured the whole time. However, I haven't read it since I was like ~21 and I've definitely changed as a reader since then, I recognize that there are some things in this book that I wouldnt appreciate if I read it for the first time now, and now that I've read most of King's bibliography, it's obvious how much his writing has evolved in the last 40 years (whose wouldn't). I still count this among my favorite books ever though, I can't discount how tied to my nostalgia reading the book is. It just feels cozy and terrifying to me at the same time, idk. Still in my top 5 King novels without a doubt.
Good but Stephen king should be banned from ever writing about women — like there needs to be a law
Rating: 3.62 leaves out of 5
Characters: 4/5
Cover:3/5
Story: 3.5/5
Writing: 4/5
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Yeah
‘Salem's Lot is basically Dracula but told in a much easier way to understand. Though I am not the biggest fan of vampires this was told fairly well. It wasn't a remarkable story but it wasn't utter trash like of his other stories are. cough cough Misery cough cough Tommyknockers. cough cough
I did give it a 3.62 but it isn't worthy of a four. This isn't a horror book to me, though I did like some of the characters I can honestly say the antagonist is lame as hell. I felt like they were a flimsy stick that blew over with a SLIGHT breeze.
Probably my favorite of King's novels. I actually “read” this the first time listening to it on CD while I was driving back from South Dakota. Ron McLarty was the performer on that audiobook and he was fantastic. Great story. Good characters.
King's talent for writing everyday life of a small town and populating it with interesting characters is on full display here. Granted there are times he goes into the small details that may not appeal to everyone, but for me as a non-visual reader he paints a picture that even I can see.
The atmosphere he builds while slowly increasing the tension is a great journey, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There were some elements I didn't think were particularly strong such as the romance Ben has and I thought there were a tad too many ‘random' characters. Overall though it's a great “modern” take on the vampire mythos.
I thought this book was very good although I felt like there was too many characters to keep up with and 2-3 characters also had nicknames so that made it even harder. Also Mark is a little boy that talks like all the other adults. I feel like his dialogue should sound a little more childish. Other than that it was a great freaky monster story.