Books in the Freezer discussion

We are doing our Stephen King episode in a few weeks, but we need your input! What is your favorite Stephen King book and why?

Needful Things.
Small town horror is one of my favorite settings, the villain is very charming and charismatic yet you still have an eerie feeling about him.
All the characters are memorable and they each have their own subplots that tie together with the main plot.
And the deaths are very gory. I admit that it’s a slow build to give the atmosphere, but it’s worth it!

Let's see here! . . . Stephen King was a huge gateway for me, not only to horror, but also just to books written for adults. So, as much as I'm very not-into some of his fan favorite works, and as much as I know he's written some flat out stinkers, I'm very emotionally involved in his work!!

I do have to agree that Needful Things is my favorite of his town-format books. I think this is an unpopular opinion? The ending is not a favorite of mine, but I LOVE the depth of the characters and the spiral the shop sends them into.

His short fiction is all very special; certain things from different stories have stuck with me my whole life. For someone who writes in such long form a lot of the time, he really knows how to pack a punch in the short format, too. I personally am very partial to his older collections and not always wowed by his newest (I'm not sure he enjoys writing it as much anymore?), but of the novellas, I did actually love Full Dark, No Stars just as much as Different Seasons.

Real quick, can't make distinctions among. . . Carrie, Misery, Pet Sematary, The Shining, The Running Man, The Stand. . . Gerald's Game and Rose Madder were super important to me when I was a teen, to the point that I can't read them critically now. .

I also want to speak on behalf of 11/22/63 in particular. I really never thought I would read it. I'm not super interested in the crime case, the time period, the physical setting. . . I don't love the book IT, which it intersects with significantly. . . but I can't explain it. I downloaded a preview and then I just couldn't stop reading. Until I was finished. I have nostalgia for reading that book that I don't even have for periods of time in my own life!! I thought it was really beautifully done, to the point where it made me care about things I don't even intrinsically care about. I would say it's pretty slow, and you can kind of see the strings he's pulling as the writer, but none of that bothered me!

My opinion on this has changed over the years. I always go back to IT and Gerald's Game. There are a few more I'd add on top of this, but maybe I'll save those for discussion. I wanted to focus on these two. I could also note several short stories too if people are curious.

IT
The chapters that follow the Loser's Club as children are my favorite. They are some of my favorite chapters King has ever written. I found the chapters that follow them as adults to be far less interesting though. When I first read the book as a teenager, the chapters as adults felt very slow. I think King does a great job of capturing a child's view of the world. It's very relatable.

I've never been afraid of clowns, so that aspect never frightened me. But the two chapters with the heading "among the missing" were the most disturbing for me. I won't go into any spoilers, but I would love to hear if other people had a similar feeling about those chapters. I found the "human" horror to be the most unsettling. The cosmic elements are interesting. That being said I've never read any of the Dark Tower books to put those into a larger context. But I found them compelling nonetheless.

One of the best scenes *mild spoiler warning" (view spoiler)[is when the kids play in the Barrens and try to build a dam. (hide spoiler)] That scene is my favorite in the whole book. It feels personally relatable to me and has a lot of heart. Even the slow pacing of these chapters didn't bother me.

On subsequent reads as an adult I found the world building and town history to be fun. As a teen I just wanted horror. As an adult I enjoyed both horror and non-horror elements.

Gerald's Game
CONTENT WARNING: Sexual violence.
This is one of my favorite books by King. I think it is the most thematically consistent book he's ever written. I stand by the assessment too! It has enough weird for my liking on top of very real human issues. This book does go into graphic and gratuitous descriptions of sexual violence. As a result this book is definitely not one I'd recommend for everyone. If you are curious I suggest looking into it ahead of time. Often King novels have what I call "old man jokes," or "good ole' boy" jokes/opinions of the world. These are probably my least favorite things about some of his novels. In this novel the only thing that bothered me was the excessive use of the word "toots" by the Ruth character. This drove me up the wall. Small complaint I know. I think this book ended up challenging some of those "good ole' boy" opinions. It's not perfect, but I suggest it for those interested in a concise and to the point King experience.

Comparing these two novels I would probably put Gerald's Game as my top King novel, even above IT. It's just so much more focused and powerful. IT has many great elements, but you have to really dig to get to them. Jessie and Mike are my two favorite King characters. Would love to see what others think of these books. If I really want to be chased away with pitchforks and torches, I could mention my least favorite King novels.

But I'll stick to my favorites for now. :)

My favorite is, hands down, The Shining. It was the first King I ever read (and I read it on a vacation in Italy so...). What gets me about this one is how terrifying it is to think about a person who you love and trust more than anyone else in the world suddenly becoming someone else entirely (and trying to murder you).

A close second for me is 11/22/63, although I wouldn't consider it horror.

The Shining is my favorite Stephen King novel. The first Stephen King book I ever read was Cujo and I really enjoyed this book. However, when I read The Shining I fell in love with King’s writing. This story has it all with the sad story of the Torrance family and the horrors of the hotel. I read this story for the first time when I was 12. I have read this novel several times since and I usually don’t reread a lot of books.

I think the SK book that scared me the most, and my most under-the-radar favorite, is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It's about a little girl who gets lost in the woods while hiking with her family. I'm an avid hiker and could feel in my bones how terrifying her situation was, even before the supernatural hijinx started.

I also absolutely love Misery; I'd seen the film before I read it and having the chapters of the book Paul is forced to write added so much for me. That may be a controversial opinion; I tried to get my husband to read it and he hated those parts. And The Stand, especially the beginning; Captain Trips scared the crap out of me.

The Dark Half is my favorite Stephen King book because he really did a great job blending his signature S.King writing style with his brutal and darkly-funny ‘Richard Bachman’ writing style.

“The sparrows are flying again”

If you’re in the know, you know The Dark Half is King’s answer to the unveiling of his pen name Richard Bachman.
Well, a huge reason I love this book is because it not only feels like King giving everyone the middle finger, but also because the story is just plain enjoyable.
Lots of great characters, beautifully haunting imagery, and an overall feeling of impending doom really round this book out.
King’s personal story and the darkly hilarious, middle finger bits intermingled are just the *chef’s kiss* on top.

“What’s going on here?”
“MURDER! Want some?”

I also love The Shining. I don’t think I need to explain why…it’s The f*cking Shining.

I have so many, but these are at the top of my list.
Dolores Claiborne. The novel was written in one chapter and it's all her voice. She is probably the most realistic character in his rolodex. Dolores had a hard life and I lived it right along side of her. I could read it over and over.
Pet Sematary. I absolutely loved Louis and Jud's relationship. It gave me all the feels. There's a melancholy tone of this story as the influence of the Micmac burial ground reaches out for them. I have so many annotations in my copy. Another one I'd read again and again.
Needful Things. I haven't read it in years and due for a reread. I loved how we get to know the people in this town and how Leland manipulates them all. It was gruesome and (for me) full of tension. Two words come to mind when I think of this novel: PURE CHAOS...and it was fantastic.
The Dark Half. Under rated IMO. I haven't read The Outsider yet, but based on the synopsis King may be borrowing from himself. The Dark Half was gritty and spooky and bloody. The image of the surgery where they find teeth and fingernails etc in his brain still haunts me.

Misery. It was so claustrophobic. These two characters playing cat and mouse in such a confined space.

I'm obsessed with Pet Sematary. I love how to touches on universal human themes of family, death, grief, guilt, and faith. It was so much more than a horror novel to me. I would probably say it's my favorite. I hated the new movie adaptation that came out this year, though. It was really not good. My first Stephen King books were actually The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Dragon Eyes, so not really his horror stuff. My mom introduced me to King, and she loves to talk about how she read Salem's Lot to me while I was in the womb and that's why I love spooky stuff, according to her lol

Regina wrote: "I have so many, but these are at the top of my list.
Dolores Claiborne. The novel was written in one chapter and it's all her voice. She is probably the most realistic character in his rolodex. Dol..."

I loved Dolores Claiborne, too! I think it's seriously underrated in the King universe =]

I picked up my first King book , Insomnia, book at age 11 from the Bookmobile. I devoured every one I could find after that. It is so hard to pick a favorite. I have a top 3. Salem's Lot, It, and The Stand. I love a good Vampire Story and Salem's Lot had scenes that were so creepy to me. I remember being home alone in the middle of the night reading this book. At one point I put it down and looked behind me. It definitely hit the creep factor for me. It was just such a great story. The Stand was such and epic book about good versus evil. I really enjoyed they way he dives into each person. There are those you know are bad but then you see their backstory and can also empathize with them. It was so well written. Lastly there is "It". What is not to love about an evil entity killing children? This book was great. I enjoyed seeing the child side as well as the adult side. Granted after seeing the mini series as a kid I had dreams that Pennywise was trying to kill me. This could also be part of the reason why I consider it scary and among my favorites.

I have read a good chunk of King, it started in high school when I had a list of books that counted for my English book reports and Carrie was on the list. I think I am a person with common thoughts and as a writer he connected with this deep subconscious that I never experienced with academic authors before.
That being said 11/22/63 was his best most immersive book. The book was a journey that spanned time and space and you felt like you lived a lifetime with these fully formed characters. I mourned, I felt the highest of joys, and most extreme stress and worry in this book. It is a book that will take over your life.
My other is The Shining because King can spend 20 pages talking about how repulsive someone is and it is refreshing seeing him be concise and story oriented. Before he could tell his editor “Piss off, I’m King”. The story was fast moving and to the point and I really felt the sense of place.
Also Lisey’s Song, King calls it his best, I don’t totally agree, but it’s special also.
Thanks for reading my rambling opinion, love you guys!

Hopefully it’s not too late!! My favorite Stephen King book is IT. In fact, I think it might be my all-time favorite book. It’s almost like an inside joke to me why I love Stephen King so much; I grew up in a small town I’m Missouri and felt like I spent my whole life trying to get away (which I did and moved to Chicago) but all my favorite King books are set in a small town and there’s drama. I just can’t seem to get away from the small town 🤣.

One of the reasons I love IT so much is because it reminds me of my two childhood best friends-no matter the distance or time we can always pick up where we left off.

This book also forces each character to face their fears head on-some more successful than others. I can relate so much to the Losers as kids, it makes me reflect on my own childhood and Life to see how far I’ve come (cheesy as it sounds).

The sentimental stuff is great but the horror is even better! The mummy scene with Ben, Adrian Mellon at the carnival, The Easter egg hunt, the black spot incident are all realistically scary. I could really see these events happening. That’s what makes King so scary.

The best way to summarize this book is this; you can overcome anything that life throws at you, but you have to take initiative and surround yourself with the right group of people that have your best interests at heart.

Thanks and enjoy! 🎈