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axeltheredpanda's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
By far one of the best books I’ve ever read. The characters are incredible, the pacing is perfect, and the situations the characters are put through are extremely impactful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Racial slurs, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Medical trauma, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Homophobia, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, and Classism
The hard r N word is used very liberally at times and a character is a racist caricature (though this is commented on within the book and she’s that way due to certain events)bluejayreads's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.0
This was a weird reading experience. I’m reading this series more to talk about it with a friend than because I want to read it, and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have continued after The Gunslinger. This book does get more into the action, so it felt less like an extended beginning and more like an actual story. At some points it was even enjoyable.
Roland spends this book going back and forth through doors that are only half there to collect the three people the man in black told him he needed. These three people are in our world in different times. There’s Eddie, a drug addict who’s on his first smuggling run when Roland meets him and who quickly became my favorite. There’s Odetta, a black amputee and two different varieties of racist stereotype. And there’s Jack Mort, whose section was fairly enjoyable even though I spent the entire time hoping that he would not have to end up joining the group.
That’s pretty much the plot. There’s an overarching plot of Roland has an infected injury and is trying to stay alive and the three shorter plots of what’s through the doors and trying to get the three people to join him, tied together by sections of walking down a disturbing beach. It is slow-paced, but it’s interesting enough, and compared to book one it’s absolutely action-packed.
It was true of book one, and only got more extreme in this book, but The Drawing of the Three falls into one of my biggest complaints with adult fantasy-adjacent books: relying on grossness and bodily fluids to portray “realism.” There’s a lot of urine, feces, sweat, pus, saliva, and all other kinds of disgusting liquid-ish things that the human body can produce. I know that it is realistic, but personally I read for fun and prefer all the gross stuff to be sanitized by the lens of fiction. I’m aware this is a personal opinion, but if bodily fluids make you squeamish you may want to skip this one.
I was also pretty weirded out by the preteen girl masturbation scene and the guy who orgasmed by murdering people, but it’s not like Stephen King has never written creepy sexual scenes before, so I guess that’s a risk you take when reading his books.
When I finished this book, I was really ambivalent about reading on. Even though this series isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read, it’s a little too slow and gross for me. This series was starting to feel more like an obligation than anything I particularly want to read. But my friend who’s also reading the series gave me a spoiler for future books that makes me more interested in reading on. So I guess I am continuing the series after all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Blood, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Racism
Minor: Rape, Sexual content, Medical content, and Murder
Sexual content involving minors, mind control, someone inside your mind without your consent