For November/December, my book club selected
Needful Things by Stephen King and I was definitely relieved to be reading something that I knew I would at least somewhat enjoy. It wasn't on my TBR at this point, although I had been considering it because I have been interested in watching
Castle Rock on Hulu and there was no way I would watch it without reading the book first. After finishing the book, I wonder how they have extended it to two seasons since the book only takes place in the course of a week or so. Guess I'll have to find out.
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| (Source: Kelsey Darling) |
Castle Rock is a small town in Maine where everyone knows everyone's business, but that has never really been an issue. And then one day in October, Leland Gaunt opens up a new shop called Needful Things. Here, you can find your deepest dreams and desires answered, and it will cost you very little, at least with money. What Mr. Gaunt really cares about is his payment of deeds, which start out as innocent pranks, but turn into something much more deadly. The residents of Castle Rock have no idea what they are in for, and few will make it out alive to find out.
I think the thing that I love about King novels is they make me question myself, or at least in these longer ones where the fears that King preys on are not something tangible. In
11/22/63, it was if I would have it in me to go back and stop the assassination of Kennedy without knowing the consequences.
The Stand has me questioning if I would have been one of the good who ended up in Colorado, or if my true nature would have taken me to Las Vegas. Now, with Needful Things, I am left wondering what my item would be that I would buy from Leland Gaunt, and would I be able to go through with his little "prank" and will this all be my undoing as it was for so many people. For these reasons, I also hate King novels because I will never have the answers and I do not necessarily want these answers. I think I don't. I don't know.
The characters in Needful Things are really compelling, but there are a lot of them. I am use to there being quite a few characters, but I wish the book had been longer to develop them more. It seems to be that the amount of characters is proportionate to the length of the book when it comes to Kings novels, but I feel this one was slightly off kilter. Polly and Alan are pretty well covered and I felt that I understood them as characters and their motivations. I would have liked more about Leland Gaunt, although you do get some information about him right before all hell breaks loose, quite literally. I want to know more about his bag of souls and other dirty tricks, and how he was able to start over after Alan kept his bag of souls. I want to know if Cora Rusk was always a half assed mother and why she loved Elvis so much. Mostly, I want to know what happened with the residents of Castle Rock that survived. How do you continue to live around each other after you beat the shit out of each, even kill each other. How do you know who really deserves to be arrested? Does anyone deserve that, or is it punishment enough knowing that you sold your soul for a fake fishing rod?
The ending also felt a little rushed. There was a huge build up to all the turmoil in the town, but it all boiled down to just a few pages. And, again, there was no clarification on how the town recovered (or didn't recover) after all of the events. The only thing we know for certain that Leland Gaunt was able to go set up another store later on even though he no longer had his bag of souls, although I am sure the devil, which is what he really is, is able to get another one of those easily.
I guess I am also a little disappointed that Alan fell for Gaunt's taunt in the end, the promise to really find out what happened to his wife and son the day they died. Alan's suspicions were high about Gaunt and the store from the beginning, and he had already said that the necklace Polly had received from Gaunt that "cured" her arthritis was snake oil. I know that Kings books always highlight that no one is purely good or purely evil, but I expected more from Alan.
Overall, the book was good. Not my favorite Kings novel, but far from the worst thing of his I have read. I am more curious about watching Castle Rock now and seeing how it compares. I would definitely recommend it though to any lover of King.
Rating: 6/10
Author:
Stephen King
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
Dates Read: November 11-16, 2019
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