Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - Salem's Lot

I love the way King creates entire communities, with fleshed out characters and history, rather than just dumping the present on us. It's so fascinating to read even the parts that aren't filled with the supernatural. If the book is about a community you can be damn sure King knew every corner of the place inside out; it teminds me of Under the Dome in that way. It adds to the tension because you know something horrifying is coming, and there's constantly something simmering under the surface while you deal with small-town gossip and secrets.

When things start to ramp up from about half way through, you can totally see the point of the slow burn until then. You've got to know all the characters just well enough to predict and dread the impending carnage.

When things do start to escalate (and it happens fast!), you can tell that making the reader informed and the victims ignorant is completely intentional; I wanted to yell at the book every time someone said "come on in" to a knock at the door, or brandished a useless gun. It made it quite fun through the tension.

I flew through the second half after savouring the first. This is definitely a classic with a proper traditional horror feel.

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caro_mac's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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emilypolcyn's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.75

This is a perfect vampire book to me. I loved how much setup we had — it made the world feel so real and grounded so when the vampires actually came the stakes were incredibly high (haha get it… stakes…)

A lovable cast of characters and a portrait of some truly awful people. I expected a good scary story but didn’t expect to love the people in it as much as I did.

Some outdated language / iffy remarks about queer and trans people but the story is all about terrible people + it was the 90s and King is just some white guy so I’ll give him a break. But if that sort of stuff upsets you be forewarned (not that you probably read Stephen King to feel warm and fuzzy inside… but still)

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cass_lit's review against another edition

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3.5

I would like to have a talk with Stephen King’s editor, because I have suggestions. Cut the slurs. Cut any sexual comment about an underage girl (and maybe even the ones about adult women — this man called breasts “jahoovies” MULTIPLE TIMES). Cut ~150 pages because this does not need to be as long as it is.

I felt about this the same I do about most Stephen King books. The bones are there and so good; he’s unmatched in his breadth of horror plot lines. But my god is this long book filled with writing that you’d think was intentionally trying to alienate women, queer readers, people of color… basically, Stephen King writes for straight, white, cis men and the rest of us just take what we can get from it. I loved the vampires and the haunted mansion on the hill, just hated all the characters and the way they talked and the way they were talked about.

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draven_deathcrush's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I love Stephen King, his writing really works for me and I usually love his stories, but I just hate vampires. That's literally the only reason I didn't like this book. The writing was amazing, and I like how descriptive it is, but I'm just not a fan of vampires.

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literatureleaf's review

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Age: 16+

Reading time: 7 days

Difficulty level: 1.5/5

Rating: 3.5/5

Salem’s Lot by Stephen King follows Ben Mears, a stuck-in-a-rut, struggling author, as he returns to his hometown in hopes of drawing inspiration for his new book from the Marsten House, an abandoned mansion with a dark and bloody history. However, upon arriving, Ben quickly realizes that all is not what it appears to be in the ‘Lot when things begin to go wrong.

As strange disappearances and unexplained happenings start to occur, coinciding with the arrival of two new residents who just don’t quite seem to be who they say they are, Ben teams up with a small group of locals to uncover the secrets of the Lots’ past, and attempt to save both the residents of Salem’s Lot and the town itself from a fate worse than any of them can imagine.

In typical King fashion, the vivid, chilling atmosphere is the star of the show. Simultaneously disquieting and beautiful, the feeling of something deeply sinister unfolding just under the nose of our main characters, against the backdrop of a seemingly sleepy New England small town that somehow feels like somewhere you’ve been before, if not in person, then in your dreams, is intensely personal and familiar.

King is the master of turning the mundane into the riveting, disgust into empathy, and pain into beauty. With the simple stroke of a pen, the boring, repetitive, and often depressing realities of those who live in small towns are crafted into something that shows how the most carnal, intimate thread of the shared human experience is fear.

With so much of the focus placed on the setting and the plot, character depth suffers. For much of the book, the main cast feels forced and shallow. With what feels like little insight into their deeper motivations and feelings, forming empathy and genuine connection with them feels impossible to achieve, even in the face of their struggles.

Unfortunately, the impression of underdeveloped characters is compounded by, at times, weak dialogue, and a long winded narrative. So much time is spent on their circumstances and environment that there is little time left to devote to the inner workings of their relationships with the town and with one another, leading to the feeling that something integral is missing.

Leaving little to the imagination, Salem’s Lot is a masterwork in utilizing the supernatural as a vehicle to explore the depths of human depravity. Taking the quietly desperate lives of the Lots’ residents, and putting their secrets, heartache, rage, wonder, and love on display in the face of a surreal, non-human malevolence beyond their wildest dreams displays a stark spotlight, not on otherworldly entities, but on the horrors that permeate our towns, our neighborhoods, and even our own backyards.

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bestrong_myfriend's review against another edition

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Too slow, predictable, and some extremely disturbing content

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