A review by bookhouseboi
Needful Things by Stephen King

dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 
Imagine a store opening inside the heart of your local hometown, selling every thing every feeling, every deep desire that you ever had. However, as they usually do, all good things come with a price, some financially, some morally, that you often can’t afford. Or wouldn’t want to. 

The premise of “Needful Things” is intriguing. As the grand finale to King’s Castle Rock novel series, it portrays yet again the small rural town as its protagonist. The inhabitants of “The Rock” as they call it, slowly getting obsessed with a new shop and its charming owner Leland Gaunt, who somehow always manages to sell them just the thing they want most in the world for an affordable price, serve as a fascinating scenery. Small feuds between characters are introduced quickly and developed with structure and passion so that you, in an enormous net of different characters, never lose track of all the rivalries and affairs going on. Mr. Leland Gaunt himself is one of the most charming and scary antagonists I’ve ever seen in King’s bibliography. His eyes always changing in colour, his tone switching between ultra-polite, strict and straight up demonic is fascinating and he’s definitely one of the most iconic characters King has ever created. Sherriff Alan Pangborn and his girlfriend Polly Chalmers who serve as the lead protagonist couple having to deal with their personal issues and secrets while the town itself slowly falls apart are an interesting counterpart to Gaunt, even if they will never reach his level of great character development. The rest of the smalltown-ensemble is, although much less complex and a bit on the cliché side of things, still very fun to watch. 

The plot itself becomes more of an issue and my biggest problem with the novel. While I really enjoyed the slow beginning and building of tension and the rapidly paced all over the place finale, the plot reaches a certain point in its second part that I just consider as very lazy writing. Up to that point, the little pranks that Gaunt’s customers have to play on each other as part of their payment set the mood for a town descending into madness and violence. Then he starts to sell different items what somehow seems off-character to me. It breaks the scary concept of a town so messed up that they go after each other with nothing but their bare hands and the intensity of the plot that has been building up the entire time kind of breaks apart. Yet it luckily returns for the last 40 pages. 

Also, what is it with Stephen King and boobs? Honestly, it’s just gets really annoying at some point that he has to vividly describe every woman’s chest, even if the character only appears in one single paragraph having to do nothing but to answer a call. While some of the more sexual scenes at least make sense within Gaunt’s abuse of people’s needs and desires, the way a necklace moves between the breasts of a female character walking is really nothing worth talking about and threw me out of an otherwise captivating story. But well, at least he’s not describing children… (looking at you, It sewer orgy scene) 

To sum up, “Needful Things” was exactly the kind of horror story I needed after a monthlong period of reading nothing else besides academic texts and novels for my literature classes. If you like King’s writing it will certainly feel comfortable and intriguing returning to “The Rock” for one last time. 

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