From the Bookshelf of 2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge…

Fairy Tale

Stephen King

Start date: April 1, 2023

Finish date: April 30, 2023

Discussion: October 2025 Buddy Reads

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What Members Thought

Oct 09, 2022 Eileen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2022-ng-group-challenge, 2022, adventure, thriller, fantasy, 2022genrechallenge, science-fiction, horror, audiobook

This is the second King book I've read in a week and I really enjoyed it! Similar to Later, the main character is a young boy, although in Later, he starts out even younger. My favorite part of this book was the first part where he meets the cranky old neighbor and ends up saving his life. He decides to help the neighbor out and as a result becomes very good friends with the man and his dog. This part of the story could almost have been a short story in itself and I couldn't stop reading. You ge This is the second King book I've read in a week and I really enjoyed it! Similar to Later, the main character is a young boy, although in Later, he starts out even younger. My favorite part of this book was the first part where he meets the cranky old neighbor and ends up saving his life. He decides to help the neighbor out and as a result becomes very good friends with the man and his dog. This part of the story could almost have been a short story in itself and I couldn't stop reading. You get to know Charlie Reade as a boy who tragically lost his mom at an early age, and then his dad, to alcohol. He becomes self-sufficient very young, by necessity. Eventually, his father becomes sober and their relationship starts to improve.

At the time this story begins, he is in high school, and his neighbor lives in the creepy old "Bates" house at the top of a hill. Eventually he forms a solid friendship with Mr. Bowditch and his dog, Radar. I am much more of a cat person than a dog person, but I loved how Charlie related to Radar, who really became his "why" for the second two thirds of the book.

Charlie was such an interesting character and you get to know him through the choices that he makes as well as his recollection of past events. Even though he's made some really bad choices in the past, you know he knows much better now and tries to make the right choice, in part, to atone for his past choices, but also because he's developed a conscience about what is right and wrong. But even as he makes the tough choices, some of which are terrible, you know he doesn't do so lightly and that he will always wonder if there was a better choice he could have made.

Eventually he makes the journey to another world and that is where the second two-thirds begins. The world has a little something for everyone. It is a world where fairy tales may be truth, but I caught references to books such as Wizard of Oz, H.P Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, movies such as Star Wars, Psycho, and Gladiator, as well as King's own books. I'm sure I missed as many references as I caught! But this is what makes King's novels so much fun and worth rereading--because you want to go back and see if you catch something new the next time through (I usually do when I reread).

This story was sad, horrific, disturbing, and dark, in the Grimm sense, but it was also fun, humorous, and had enough poignant moments that made me smile.

I ended up bingeing this story and finished it pretty quickly. I enjoyed the narrator, except for one of the voices, but only because when he did her voice, he shouted because she was deaf. While it was appropriate, it did get a bit annoying whenever he did her voice. Still, he did a pretty good job of differentiating most of the voices and his voice fit with the way I pictured Charlie. I would definitely listen to this book again.
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Sep 13, 2022 Martha rated it liked it

Shelves: sept-2022-books

I believe this is the first Stephen King book I've ever finished. I enjoyed the first 350 pages or so, but the last 250 pages were tedious (lots of we went to the passage on the left and then the passage on the right).. Because I liked more than half the book I gave a rating of 3 stars for reading enjoyability. ...more

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