By Stephen King

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On an empty, dusty highway in Nevada, seven people who would have never met under any other circumstances are forced together under evil forces that are hell-bent on destroying more than just a small mining town.

Blink and you’ll miss it. Desperation is a small town off Highway 50 in Nevada with a decrepit movie theater, Bud’s Suds bar, and the China Pit – a mining venture for precious metals and a deep seeded secret.

When Mary and Peter rolled into town and were pulled over for seemingly no reason, they had no idea what was in store for them.

David Carver’s turn to God during heartbreak in his young life led him to believe one thing – God is cruel, but He definitely has a plan, even if his parents think it’s a phase.

John Edward Marinville is an accomplished literary writer with a narcissistic bad boy complex.

Steve and Cynthia are two outcasts who are looking for connection.

What all of these people have in common is one thing – the horrors that await them in Desperation, Nevada.

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Stephen King holds nothing back in Desperation.

I was skeptical about picking up my first King book because I thought, “There’s no way he deserves all the credit he gets.” After all, he’s written at least 64 novels and over 200 short stories (at least what I found from Google). There’s no way someone with that many books under his belt is actually that good. But to be fair, I’ve been reading a lot of self-published works on Kindle and let’s just say you don’t exactly need an editor to publish a whole series yourself.

So I started reading this book with Ty in the evenings before we went to sleep. I would read to him and, occasionally, he’d read to me. But I think I read more than three-quarters of the almost 700 page book aloud to him while he dozed off. He would tell me how he’d read it at least once a year when he was a teenager and at first I was like, “yeah but you like classic lit and stuff we read in high school. I like more horror and thriller/suspense.” So what were the chances I’d actually like this book?

If you can’t tell by the rating, I LOVED Desperation. As my intro into the Stephen King world I was greeted with thriller, suspense, and gory horror beyond my expectations.

I had nightmares. I almost threw up in some parts.

I loved it.

This was the type of book I’d been looking for and I am officially a Stephen King fan.

Not only did the character development progress take place in a realistic way while the heroes were fighting evil forces, it was scary, terrifying, and I never knew when one of them was going to drop dead.

And quite a few of them do – don’t get me wrong. Stephen King is not one to hold back from death and destruction. And the way these heroes faced their mortality with grace or humor – or whatever suited their character’s personality – there’s no denying that King poured himself in to these characters.

Halfway-3/4 of the way through the book, I started feeling like the plot was dragging a bit. Like we thought we already knew who was working behind the scenes and we’re just waiting for the characters to figure it out. But that time was really just building suspense for the ending. Without realizing it, we’re finding out important information about these characters and what it means to be stuck without any good options of escape. This section wasn’t just filler. King added in some incredible information that we need to recall later in the book in order to draw conclusions about who these people are, how the evil Unformed being is controlling everything around them, and watching them grow as survivors.

After I read a few more Stephen King books I’ll be better able to say whether this is the best one in his collection, but for right now I have to give this book at least 5/5.

I recommend this book to:

• Stephen King fans (duh?)
• Horror lit fans
• King nay-sayers (this one converted me, anyway)

Desperation by Stephen King is on Amazon Kindle