Needful Things
by Stephen King
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 6597)
Read in December, 2005
I have read something better. Lumayanlah buat buku horror... idenya lumayan orisinil... Stephen King gitu lho. Tapi menurut aku nggak termasuk salah satu buku SK yang terbaik.
Ceritanya tentang penduduk sebuah kota kecil Castle Rock, Maine (kenapa ceritanya SK kebanyakan berlatar belakang Maine ya? apa karena dia berasal dari sana?) Kota ini kedatangan penduduk baru, pemilik toko misterius bernama Leland Gaunt. Tokonya bernama Needful Things, yang berisi apa aja yang diinginkan oleh penduduk ...more
Ceritanya tentang penduduk sebuah kota kecil Castle Rock, Maine (kenapa ceritanya SK kebanyakan berlatar belakang Maine ya? apa karena dia berasal dari sana?) Kota ini kedatangan penduduk baru, pemilik toko misterius bernama Leland Gaunt. Tokonya bernama Needful Things, yang berisi apa aja yang diinginkan oleh penduduk ...more
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Read in October, 1993
recommends it for:
Horror fans, modern fantasy fans, King fans, cultural readers
Note: this hardcover edition contains all three books of the Needful Things trilogy.
Stephen King’s final tale about his town: Castle Rock, Maine. It’s full of simple and familiar people, some unique in their flaws, some charming in their earnestness or plights, all believable. Castlerock was the perfect setting for King, a place that seemed authentic no matter how many strange things happened there. The final strange visitor is Mr. Leland Gaunt, a shopkeeper who peddles your dream...more
Stephen King’s final tale about his town: Castle Rock, Maine. It’s full of simple and familiar people, some unique in their flaws, some charming in their earnestness or plights, all believable. Castlerock was the perfect setting for King, a place that seemed authentic no matter how many strange things happened there. The final strange visitor is Mr. Leland Gaunt, a shopkeeper who peddles your dream...more
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Read in September, 2006
A new store opens in a small village which gives people their deepest desires.
[Warning: spoilers]
Now that I thought of it, this is a pretty good story.
Though Stephen King might not have intended to, this book can be used to represent a bit of the weird human thinking that we have developed.
This is how it works. The shop opens. The owner has everything that each customer wants. He gives something similar to that to the customer, but the customer gets an illusion that it is the pe...more
[Warning: spoilers]
Now that I thought of it, this is a pretty good story.
Though Stephen King might not have intended to, this book can be used to represent a bit of the weird human thinking that we have developed.
This is how it works. The shop opens. The owner has everything that each customer wants. He gives something similar to that to the customer, but the customer gets an illusion that it is the pe...more
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Read in January, 2007
This book starts off talking about a small town and how a shop was just recently starting up, named Needful Things which is actually run by the devil. In this shop you can get whatever you desire, but at a price. Throughout the course of this book, people are driven against each other to their end due to their own stupidity, their stupidity of following their greed over anything else. People turn paranoid and do things that they wouldn't normally do. Like for example, one person wanted this Bazu...more
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Read in July, 1995
recommends it for:
King-lovers and theologians
There should be a theology class at every university, Christian or not, devoted to reading and picking apart this book. Leland Gaunt, a pretty obvious "prince of this world" figure moves in and manipulates townspeople into innocently and blindly tearing each other to bits. Destruction, chaos, cruelty, and the worst kind of evil are his speciality, and they are all masked under the glitter and attractiveness of needful things.
Years after reading this, I was driving through a cit...more
Years after reading this, I was driving through a cit...more
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Read in January, 1994
recommends it for:
Steven King Fans
I believe I read this book first back in high school. I had become a fan of Stephen King after reading "The Eyes of the Dragon" and other works. At the time, this was his newest release, and I was really looking forward to reading it.
I enjoyed the first 90% of the book. I thought the way he intertwined the characters was so amazing. How the "needs" of one could cause so many hurt, friction, pain, or death of others - it amazed me how he could keep it all straight! ...more
I enjoyed the first 90% of the book. I thought the way he intertwined the characters was so amazing. How the "needs" of one could cause so many hurt, friction, pain, or death of others - it amazed me how he could keep it all straight! ...more
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Stephen King movies suck. Always have, more than likely, always will. But I think that's the key to truely appreciate one of his books. I read this book first, then watched the movie about 6 months later with a friend. If you've seen the movie, you understand how upset I was that I wasted an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back. I kept bugging my friend for the next week to read the book because it was so much better. He eventually did, althought I'm not sure if it was just to shut me ...more
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Looking for something familiar (and not taxing) post surgery, I went to the King shelf. Not sure I'd read this one more than once, and I didn't remember many of the plot details, which kept it fresh.
I couldn't figure out till I turned to more King (wanting to get a bigger Castle Rock fix) afterwards what was wrong with this one.
It's too big. King thrives on intimate details with his characters, and there are just too many in Needful Things. That's the point, of course: The whole town goes ma...more
I couldn't figure out till I turned to more King (wanting to get a bigger Castle Rock fix) afterwards what was wrong with this one.
It's too big. King thrives on intimate details with his characters, and there are just too many in Needful Things. That's the point, of course: The whole town goes ma...more
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Read in January, 1993
Good story about a mysterious store opening up by the name of Needful Things...where there is something for everybody. Not only are the items for sale what people are looking for...they are EXACTLY what they feel they need in their lives to be fulfilled. Unfortunately, these kinds of goods come with a high price that's not always payable with just money. A twisted story about greed and human nature.
Also became a decent movie, but it was watered down I'm sure from budgetary limits. The ...more
Also became a decent movie, but it was watered down I'm sure from budgetary limits. The ...more
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One of the things that I love best about S.K. (when he does it) is how he weaves so MANY detailed character studies into a larger story, usually about place (like Castle Rock)... Of course, The Stand, did that par excellence, but Needful Things is probably his next best. The knife fight between Wilma and Nettie is unspeakable. Brian's consumptive guilt is palapable. And as usual with S.K., even in his very good stories he has his stinker moments and this one has more than usual, so it doesn't ge...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in August, 2002
Date read is approximate. I loved this one as a movie, but the book didn't really grab me. I felt like it got too oversexed, especially with the boy. However, the plot idea is so good, I'm willing to forgive it a bit. A man comes to town and sets up a little shop where you can get what your heart desires--for a price. King winds up this little town and turns its petty jealousies into killer arguments. Not the best King I've read, but still worth your time after you've read some of the bett...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
The premise of this book always shakes me deeply. The fact that Mr. Gaunt never actually perpetrated any of the crimes/atrocities is most disturbing to me. People and their own deep-seated hatreds and desires can be disastrous as proved in Castle Rock. I only gave this book 3 stars because (as typical of early SK) some of the situations veered toward the ludicrous and left out the psychologically illuminating moments that are the highlights of SK's better work.
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Read in July, 2007
Someone at work lent me this after a discussion on which of his books we had read I missed this when it first came out and didn't see the film\tv movie.I thought Leland Gaunt was a horrible creepy character, but some of this book is also very funny (the Elvis fans lusting over a photo and a pair of glasses).There is the usual small town characters convincingly written and the build up to everything going mental is classic Stephen King.
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I liked this story line a lot, and as a someone who attaches far too much sentiment to various objects, and is also a horrible packrat, I enjoyed the idea of material things being a person's downfall.
BUT this book is too long, perhaps needlessly so. Yeah, I guess when your name is Stephen King, there is no commercial reason for you to bother editing your material until it is "tight", but it sure would be nice for the readers.
BUT this book is too long, perhaps needlessly so. Yeah, I guess when your name is Stephen King, there is no commercial reason for you to bother editing your material until it is "tight", but it sure would be nice for the readers.
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Read in January, 1992
I had some bad experiences of being forced to read books at primary school that I really didn't like. This unfortunately put me off books for about four years. I read this book along with To Kill a Mockingbird and had a renewed interest in books all of a sudden. Yay. As for the book itself, I'd read Skeleton Crew and IT years before but for some reason - probably a lot to do with TKAM as well - this just grabbed me.
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this was one of my favorite Stephen King books. i mean, i think that his books are great, and very smart. i am always surprised by them...i just think he's a fun writer. so this book in particular remains in my memory. perhaps it's because of each of the individual "things" that each person coveted and ended up doing horrible things to get. i think that each of those things he wrote about were quite clever...
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recommends it for:
no one
I started reading this my sophmore year and I couldn't make it through a couple of chapters. It wasn't interesting or entertaining at all. I did decided to pick it back up a couple of years ago however. It took forever to finish I never really got into it. Towards the end of the book it picked up my attention though. Not to sure if it's because the end was near or because it turned a little interesting.
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I think this book was brilliant......the way the small events in the plot slowly weave themselves into a coherent "wow" ending. It brilliantly shows how small events in the lives of different people are all interconnected in ways we don't always understand....what you do matters. For the book "snobs" I know....read it and see what you think. It might surprise you. I think it's his best so far.
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recommends it for:
King fans, horror fans
"Needful Things" was all right. It reminds me very much of a "Twilight Zone" episode about a little shop that sells exactly what you need. Except that in "Needful Things" the sinister little shop sells you what you want the most and turns you against your friends and neighbors. Greed and deception ultimately wind up destroying a small, close-knit community.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.52 (6064 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.50 (5255 ratings) number of reviews: 167popular shelves
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