Trish's Reviews > Fairy Tale

My god, is there ANYTHING the "king of horror" cannot do? It doesn't seem to matter what kind of book SK writes, he always produces a wonderful story.

Hero of Fairy Tale is Charlie, a 17-year-old who has been through hell ever since his mother was killed in a hit-and-run following which his father became an alcoholic. He's in a pretty good place at the beginning of this book, but he doesn't really trust it. Also, some stuff he's done in the past is haunting him.
But when a dog alerts him to the plight of a reclusive neighbor, he does the right thing and helps. Charlie even becomes his caretaker.
Eventually, Charlie not only becomes Mr. Bowditch's friend, but is told his secret and that opens a whole new can of worms. Not because Charlie is greedy - because he cares. In fact, caring is basically what this book was all about for me.

Stephen King took the best elements of various Grimm fairy tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk (the original versions, not the Disney-esque ones) and combined them with the essence of portal stories like Narnia before turning the mix into his very own blend of fantasy and horror.

There were many great references to pop culture as well as to other SK stories. The Crimson King definitely featured in here but if this is his origin story or just another example of him possessing and corrupting people and places, we can't be sure. I think the author is deliberately leaving that up to the reader.
However, it is obvious that this book gives us another of the worlds of the wheel we were introduced to in The Dark Tower, which means we also get elements of gunslinging heroics and desolate worlds.

Honestly, the worldbuilding was the best. In Charlie's world and the other. Though I also thoroughly enjoyed the growing relationship between Charlie and Mr. Bowditch. OK, Charlie's father was cool, too. My favorite character, however, was Radar. Hands down. Nobody beats the old girl. And her fate also kept me on the edge of my seat the most.

The only problem was the difference between the first and second part of the book - the first definitely being better.

As I said before, this is not one of my favorite SK books, not even top 3, but that is just because SK sets the bar so high and is producing so many incredibly fantastic books - this one was still enchanting and a wonderful adventure.