Stephen King's 2014 novel Revival is in no way a "stretch" for the author, and was remarked as a "return to horror" after other sorts of writing projects. Its settings are King's familiar Maine, Colorado by way of Tulsa, and Maine again. Its first-person protagonist Jamie Morton is nine years younger than King. Morton is a guitarist, and King is shown with a guitar on his shoulder in the author photo on the book jacket. Morton has a hip injury from a road accident reflecting King's life experience in that detail among others. But the result is an extremely polished piece of work where the writing energies appear to have gone into focused storytelling, because details have been furnished by long familiarity rather than fresh research.

The literary precedents for the book are called out in a set of eleven horror writers who figure as its dedicatees. Indeed, the subject matter is very much that of Shelly's Frankenstein crossed with Machen's "The Great God Pan." It is also every inch a Faust story, and I read it in part as an attempt to rewrite the sleeping dream of H.P. Lovecraft documented in "Nyarlathotep" (1920) in the form of a modern novel. King didn't list Ray Bradbury among his forebears, but I did detect a number of motifs that are associated with that author's work, not least those likely stemming from Bradbury's childhood encounter with Mr. Electrico!

Most of the novel is very mundane, setting up the background against which the outré conclusion can be played out. This general narrative setting out five decades of Jamie's family and love, career and life experience, provides a satisfying read, and it never gets bogged down. The sense of dread accelerates dramatically towards the end of the book, and the climax is a concerted violation of received morality, normal science, and religious hope. Nice work. The denouement doesn't take the edge off, either.

this is a pretty solid book. i really like how it goes through a whole life time of the main character and its not a crazy long book either. the coming of age elements are strong here and i think jamie was a good main character with his dialog. the parts with the band and him returning to his hometown after many years were definitely my favorite parts.

i dont want to say much on the ending but before i read this i always heard people say it was a huge surprise and i can agree it definitely was a surprise and thought it was really cool and crazy.

my only complaint was that there was a couple sections in the middle i found to be a little dull to get to the next exciting interaction but outside of this. this was a good read with some interesting ideas involving lightning ( )

Stephen King's newest novel left me wondering because while I've read dozens of his novels, this is the first time I identified and sympathized more with the villain than "the hero" The villain, Charlie felt knowledge was power and set out to answer the ultimate question : What happens to us when we die? In searching for the answer he discovered the ability to heal people suffering terrible illness and disease. In typical Stephen King fashion these people all experienced horrific endings, but as a character in a Stephen King novel, Charlie had no way of knowing this. And I admired him for giving it his all. Whereas the hero, admitting he was curious, was unwilling to take chances, stating somethings are better off staying unknowable. Sorry, but I just can't buy into that mentality. If you have a question then seek the answer ( )

A me King piace, anche quando canna i libri. Revival non è brutto, di per sé. Ha un prologo lunghissimo, dato che non succede niente fino a pagina 200 o giù di lì - capisco che tutte le informazioni diventino poi rilevanti nel resto della storia, però sta di fatto che per metà libro l'horror scarseggia. Poi si riprende, scorre bene e il finale è piuttosto inquietante; solito mostro lovecraftiano, capiamoci, ma fatto bene.

Boh. Sono perplessa. Vorrei anche capire come mai un vecchio con un piede dentro la tomba insista per sapere cosa ci sia dopo la morte - lo scopri da solo tra non molto, Charlie. Serve fare tutto 'sto casino? ( )

Putting this as both reading in English and Swedish, because half of it I read in my physical Swedish copy and half of it online while at work. It's been a few not so busy workdays.

I'm always impressed with Stephen King's ability to write a book that spans an entire lifetime, because personally I struggle to keep a plot going for more than a few weeks whenever I write. And while this ends up with some parts that are just exposition ... I don't mind.

I was very close to giving this book five stars, but as can be expected from a King novel I wasn't completely sold on the ending. I think I expected something more along the lines of Pet Sematary, which I supposed he couldn't really do without repeating himself. Instead we got something more similar to From a Buick 8, and that book was also great until the ending. Though, neither endings completely ruined the book for me, especially not given how much I enjoyed the ride up to that point.

Because it is a long, creepy ride. Maybe more like a crawl. It's pretty obvious where all the electrical experiments are eventually going to go, if from nowhere else than from the title, but the fact that it takes its time getting there is not a bad thing. I can see why the character would not realize that until it was way too late though.

Also: lesbians. Not much of it, but lesbians. ( )