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A review by lolarmoore
Billy Summers by Stephen King
2.0
2.5 stars.
I really wanted to like my first Stephen King novel, but this one fell pretty flat for me. I'm unsure if we were supposed to like Billy and Alice's weird little Freudian relationship, but if we were, that was done poorly. If we were supposed to hate it, then kudos. I found this book pretty slow, and I was left wondering if all the setup was really necessary. I really respect King's style of writing and I'm sure it really works in his other books, but in this one, I found it tedious and a little overbearing. I'm also unsure if Alice really did have Stockholm syndrome or not, but I think she probably did because yikes. Maybe crime is just not my genre because all of the crime parts of the plot (the setup for the assassination, tracking down Nick in Vegas, finding and killing the pedophile) bored me. I thought the way of telling Billy's backstory through his story was incredibly interesting, and very well done. The part towards the end, when tenses changed from third person to Billy's first person, was also an interesting choice that I thought was executed well, to demonstrate his life and his story catching up with one another and becoming one. I thought Alice's story was a good idea, but it could've been done in a few other ways that would have made for a better read to me personally. I also thought sprinkling in political details and COVID foreshadowing was a little gauche and should've gone without. there is a time and a place for subtlety, especially when it comes to incorporating real-world/pop culture elements into a book, and, depending on the book, it really has to be done a certain way.
I really wanted to like my first Stephen King novel, but this one fell pretty flat for me. I'm unsure if we were supposed to like Billy and Alice's weird little Freudian relationship, but if we were, that was done poorly. If we were supposed to hate it, then kudos. I found this book pretty slow, and I was left wondering if all the setup was really necessary. I really respect King's style of writing and I'm sure it really works in his other books, but in this one, I found it tedious and a little overbearing. I'm also unsure if Alice really did have Stockholm syndrome or not, but I think she probably did because yikes. Maybe crime is just not my genre because all of the crime parts of the plot (the setup for the assassination, tracking down Nick in Vegas, finding and killing the pedophile) bored me. I thought the way of telling Billy's backstory through his story was incredibly interesting, and very well done. The part towards the end, when tenses changed from third person to Billy's first person, was also an interesting choice that I thought was executed well, to demonstrate his life and his story catching up with one another and becoming one. I thought Alice's story was a good idea, but it could've been done in a few other ways that would have made for a better read to me personally. I also thought sprinkling in political details and COVID foreshadowing was a little gauche and should've gone without. there is a time and a place for subtlety, especially when it comes to incorporating real-world/pop culture elements into a book, and, depending on the book, it really has to be done a certain way.