Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Needful Things by Stephen King

10 reviews

mechtimber's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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pinkleum's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

sick and twisted with a side of racism and misogyny. Finished the book out of determination to say i read stephen king but now i don’t know why it matters to.

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illtakethenightshiftx's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Needful Things isn’t one of my favorite King novels but when it’s read by King himself, it’s 10x better

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_marycappiello3's review against another edition

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dark emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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jordan_uhden's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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tcgarback's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 💫 
Critical Score: B
Personal Score: B+
Reading Experience: 📘📘📘📘(4/5)

This was refreshingly classic King, and that’s just what the doctor ordered. I loved the huge cast, small town vibes, and gradually increasing dread.

At times the satire is in full command, and other times it feels like the joke is more on King than anyone else. There’s some implausibility with the general function of the book.
You can’t think too much about the magical powers of the antagonist, or else a lot of plot holes come up, mostly around the general question, if he has the magical powers to do XYZ, why does he have to go to these lengths to get XYZ accomplished? The typical confusion you might have reading a realist book involving magic. There’s also a dullness that comes with an antagonist who can see the future and is generally omnipresent, but then makes dumb mistakes and is eventually brought down pretty easily—especially given the ridiculous resolution of the climax. Why solve the main conflict with an out-of-place plot twist only Dark Tower fans would understand, let alone appreciate, and give literally no explanation as to what’s going on?? And then the book ends three pages later…huh? Except for this failure to stick the landing, act three is solid.


So anyway, if you get over the silly stuff like that (and I found this relatively easy to do) this is deviously fun and cozily nostalgic.

But of course, because this is classic King, there is some problematic stuff to shift through: fatphobia, casual racism, and homophobia are the most obvious ones here. I also hate that the protagonist is a cop.

This one also lacks scariness, but honestly, there are very few King books that scare me.

I loved the unexpected twist on the meaning of the title at the start of Part Three. I loved the colorful assortment of merchandise and their respective human flaws (addiction, chronic pain, grief, materialism, loneliness, lust, etc).

To wrap things up, I loved that this was a nice and long deep dive into another small town falling apart, complete with a balanced ensemble cast and an increasingly complex web of subplots.

Not in my Stephen King God-tier, but not far below it either.

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hschlecht's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense

5.0


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smithreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective 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? Yes

3.75


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readwithbells's review against another edition

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3.5

Genuinely a fun time, love the focus on the characters and the atmosphere for the first 4-500 pages was super unsettling I absolutely vibed. The ending is soooo stupid lmao (I’m always surprised when King’s books turn out to be Christian fiction??) and the copaganda goes hard. Also everything was going fine until we find out two characters are gay (obvi the only LGBTQ+ characters in the book) and they’re also both pedophiles 🙄 Stephen. Come on. 

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btrz7's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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