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r_o_s_e's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Suicide, Medical content, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury
maddypat's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
I forgot how much I loved Stephen King's books! It was slow to start - why would I care about some random small town in Maine? But once it got going it was relentless and I simply couldn't put it down. I plowed through the second half of the book last night and this morning. The story is thrilling and it pulls you in before you even realize it. Stephen King is a master at crafting tense and creepy atmospheres and 'Salem's Lot does not disappoint on that front.
One thing to be wary of is this book also is no exception to King's sometimes weird descriptions of what women (and sometimes also girls) look like or behave like. Just weird sexual descriptions that are just uncomfortable. I understand sometimes it's the characters themselves thinking these things (Dud regarding Ruthie is the major example here) but even still it always sticks out as weird to me.
In spite of that, though, this book was thoroughly enjoyable to read!
One thing to be wary of is this book also is no exception to King's sometimes weird descriptions of what women (and sometimes also girls) look like or behave like. Just weird sexual descriptions that are just uncomfortable. I understand sometimes it's the characters themselves thinking these things (Dud regarding Ruthie is the major example here) but even still it always sticks out as weird to me.
In spite of that, though, this book was thoroughly enjoyable to read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, and Violence
Minor: Alcoholism, Rape, and Suicide
gflechas's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
The book is strongly influenced by Bram Stoker's Dracula, and is pretty transparent about it in the into. I walked away feeling like I listened to "Steven King does Dracula" which for me was a positive. King goes his own direction with the ideas and makes them his own. I had fun and would recommend it, though there is not the same hope to be found in Salem's Lot as was found for Mr. Harker and his band of heros.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
emma_ann's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Suicide, and Grief
kelleykamanda's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I thought the town and the characters within the town were fascinating. With that said, the main character was bland… and this book was wayyyy too long. I loved Dracula so I had a bit of hope. This book isn’t terrible, but it definitely isn’t the bed vampire read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Homophobia, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual content, and Grief
Minor: Vomit and War
Just assume this book has it all.baudi_moovan's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Suicide, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol
jaedia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Took much too long to get going though King's writing has a way of making nothing seem readable. There were pages that simply detailed what different families were having for dinner. While I can respect this was to effectively show the slow death of the town, some of it was just boring. Also would be remiss not to mention the sheer amount of homophobic slurs in the book. And this was clearly written when King had a very bleak outlook of the world.
That all said, I did enjoy reading it. The writing was enjoyable, the story compelling, and the dread creeping. A nice dark vampire horror story of a town's slow, sleepy, bloodcurdling death.
That all said, I did enjoy reading it. The writing was enjoyable, the story compelling, and the dread creeping. A nice dark vampire horror story of a town's slow, sleepy, bloodcurdling death.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Alcohol
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Gore, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Suicide, Transphobia, Medical content, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
zakcebulski's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I feel that I was always missing out on something regarding Kings work. I have read a handful of his books- the ones described to be "the classics" or highly acclaimed; 11/22/63The Shining, The Stand, IT, Misery, Pet Semetary and I thought some- The Shining, 11/22/63 and Misery were good! But, I did not at all care for The Stand, IT or Pet Semetary.
There is just something about the characters in those books that just makes me not want to continue reading them. I haven't the foggiest as to why. I hear a ton of praise for King's writing of believable dialogue- but, this is usually something that off-puts me from King's work.
But, not Salem's Lot. I absolutely loved this damn book.
Starting off, the plot is so simple- it is a man who returns to a town wherein he once lived, and had a traumatic experience with a house there and comes back to write about it. That is when things start to go bump in the night.
I have to immediately praise King's willpower to have the vampire threat show up in a slow trickle rather than BOOM vampires. Had I not known what the book was about, I would have thought that with the Glick boy's disappearances, that we were dealing with a child killer with Straker (as heinous as that would be!). But, it is the gradual introduction of the vampires that we see the true threat that is looming.
King does an exceptional job of showing the ripple effect that occurs as vampires start spreading and it helps immensely to build the tension in the reader.
I appreciated so much that King took the time to flesh out so many of the characters around town so that when they met their end they were less nameless red shirts.
I also appreciate King's willingness to kill off more or less every damn character he gave a name to. Like, toward the end of the book it is fucking everyone dying like good god, man. Though, I do think that killing characters for the sake of killing them is silly, and I don't like reading a book where there are fake stakes (haha). I think that this book called for the deaths of so many characters so that it was illustrated well how truly fucking dismal the situation had become.
I think that this is where the book truly scared me. I have said many times that I have never been scared by a book in a way that a horror movie scares. I have been grossed out, but that genuine tension I feel is lost when I read books- probably through my fault. But, King nailed it here.
He did this by making truly creepy imagery in regards to the early vampires coming and accosting their prey at windows. There is something in the imagery of an undead teenage tapping on the window with their grotesque nails on the window that truly unnerved me.
The other way which King amazingly crafts terror is by means of shows how out of control the vampire plague is. The rapidity of the deaths of the townspeople is so well done that it is truly scary when we realize that the main group is tasked with combating these insurmountable odds.
Speaking of the main groups- I liked all of the characters quite well. Ben, Jimmy, Susan, Matt, Mark and Father Callahan are all great characters.
I especially liked Mark, Father Callahan and Susan. I appreciated the resourcefulness of Mark, and how he is so knowledgeable at a young age. I loved the complexity of Father Callahan, wherein he is dealing with a doubt of faith and how that aids to lead to his undoing. And, Susan, I thought was a character that could have fallen in to the trap of being a typical poorly written female character- which King is notorious for doing. But, Susan, I thought, added a good amount of complexity with the mid-20s girl who is struggling to find herself with the looming oppressive force of her mother. And, she does! She rises to the occasion which very unfortunately leads to her death.
Susan's death is one that I truly did not see coming. I was anticipating King to have written this where everyone dies but Ben and Susan make it out together. Not only does that not happen, but, Susan is killed off so quickly and out of nowhere, that it truly shocked me.
I like that King wrote all of these characters to be people, and we grew to know them, just as quickly he starts chopping them all down.
I think that the big bad of Kurt Barlowe is a wonderful villain. I like that though he does have the extreme feats of strength at his disposal, he prefers to outwit his enemies by challenging them to fight their inner demons and cause them to doubt themselves.
I loved this book. Did this book turn me in to a Stephen King fan? No, it did not. Did I come out of this book interested in reading more King in the future, or re-reading books I did not like originally, yes, it did.
I thought that this was the perfect book for the Fall weather, a few weeks before Halloween!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Car accident, Death of parent, and Murder
pescemariana's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Nice book. I love the last chapter. It's kind of a slow burn so the beginning can get pretty boring. I didn't really like the characters, except maybe the priest and the vampire; they are the most interesting ones and they're interaction was pretty cool (maybe the coolest part of the book). It's worth the read. Great story.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Murder
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Sexism, Suicide, Medical content, and Alcohol