Book Cover

"I love you, Paul. You know that, don't you?"

Past Stephen King reviews:

• The Institute

# Review

While this novel is a psychological thriller, a genre which King is well-versed in; this specific book is unique in that it does not feature any elements of the supernatural. In this story, the drama and thrills are concocted within the realms of reasonable reality, and King delivers.

The story follows the famous author Paul Sheldon, who after a car accident, is kidnapped by Annie Wilkes, a crazed fan of his novels. Annie tortures Paul and forces him to write for her.

The story itself is riveting, kind of like a very grotesque One Thousand and One Nights; it's also interesting to read what Paul writes, essentially a book within a book. Perhaps my favourite aspect of this book is how King sprinkles his insight of the creative writing process into the story; not only do these nuggets of knowledge add to the believability of Paul's character development, they are also very informative.

Typically with King novels, I find myself reading the book in chunks, usually starting slow at the beginning and reading through the last hundred or so pages in one sitting. This book was no exception; the build up is very gradual; it felt like King, as with Paul in the story, was making up the story as he wrote and it almost felt as if the reader had input into the process. One area which I would've like to see more was the psychological cat-and-mouse between Paul and Annie; while there were certainly aspects of this, it wasn't the main focus.

# Conclusion

A classic King story.

# Overall rating: 8.2

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