Finders Keepers - Stephen King
In high school, I was a Stephen King fanatic. I don't know if it was a result of my confinement to small town Wisconsin and the sheer boredom that often resulted, or my never ending hunger to be terrified (I was a weird kid), or the fact that I fancied myself a 'writer' and many of King's stories centered around authors, but whatever King put out, I consumed. Religiously. Then came college, and eventually adulthood, and if I was gifted a more recent King release, I'd look over both shoulders, make sure no one was looking and judging me, and dive right in - reluctantly, at first, because, *scoff*, Stephen King? C'mon. So not intellectual. Or 'too contemporary' and not obscure/hip enough. Or lame. Or whatever. Yet I finished every King piece of work I always picked up, with the exception of the Gunslinger series. (I just couldn't get into that, don't know why). The stigma followed me into modern days, and only by the mere addiction of my recently acquired Kindle this year and a loss of ideas on what to add to my Chicago Public Library Hold Queue did I decide to revisit Mr. King. And this was the first thing I randomly selected.
I'll admit, when it comes to my eBooks on hold with the library, when it rains, it pours, so even though this was the first book to come off hold of three within a 4 day succession, this was the last work I read of the cluster. And it was the most addicting. The biggest page turner. Maybe not at first, but you better believe I devoured up the last 150 pages with minimal breaks. Candy Crush, Facebook, Instagram, and all my other usual Internet perusings went on the back burner until I finished this bad boy. It's typical King style/fashion. The protagonist (maybe both of them, depending on how you look at it) and some background characters, even, are writers. In fact, the whole tale revolves around a series of writings that were 'lost'/stolen, etc., and unpublished from a 'genius' writer. Pretty much King's comparison of J. D. Salinger and the breakout piece following a sarcastic young male in the peak of his adolescence, rejecting the inevitability of adulthood (i.e. Holden Caulfield, anyone?). The comparisons are so obvious, it's like any episode of Law and Order SVU mimicking whatever pop culture reference is hot that week.
The characters are likeable enough, and you end up becoming invested in their outcomes. The last quarter of the book is a non-stop nail biter. And leave it to King to end the tale on a cliffhanger of sorts, leading an opportunity for a sequel/prequel of sorts on a spin-off tale, (which I believe he has since published, called Mr. Mercedes, already added to my queue).
The story is not going to win any awards. And it's not the best book I've read this year. There's nothing new in it. But the thing with Stephen King is, if you've read one to three of his stories, you pretty much know what you've got in store when you pick up a cover. Entertainment, amusement, and King's wise cracky/clever style and voice. And that's not a bad thing. In fact, after my queue opens up,(which already includes another of his works), I'm very likely to add even more. And next time somebody asks me what I'm reading, I won't be embarrassed to tell them. Because it's fun, and I'm a grown-up, goddamn it. I can read whatever I want.
I'd rate this book a 7/10, based on entertainment value, over originality.
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