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A review by audra_spiven
Billy Summers by Stephen King
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-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
4.5
I waited too long between finishing this and writing the review, so I probably have forgotten the details I wanted to cover here, but as a Stephen King book, this was both enjoyable and predictable, and by "predictable" I do not mean plot. I mean that King's characteristic motifs appear as expected, and his blind spots also appear as expected.
His female characterization continues to be lacking, which is unfortunate. In the Alice character here, there's an echo of the Beverly character from IT, and not in a good way. I don't know where King gets his ideas about how women think and behave (I struggled with this in his Mr. Mercedes series too), but he is clearly fascinated with the idea of nontraditional women who buck norms and enjoy things that are normally viewed as male pleasures, although that kind of woman is becoming less and less of an anomaly with the evolution of time. King always treats these women like they are unicorns. I always get the feeling that he's writing into these characters women he wishes he had met in life but hasn't--because they always have just a whiff of unreality about them, sort of like an alien pretending to be a human. The way he has his female characters talk about sex is one of the big indicators that King is out of his depth. Another one is the way he describes menstruation. There's a scene in this book where the woman thinks her period is coming and "runs" into the store to buy her feminine supplies before something "gushes" out. Like . . . I definitely understand not wanting to ruin a pair of underwear or pants (I have ruined plenty in my day from starting unexpectedly or not knowing I had started!), but I would never use the word "gush" to describe anything about menstruation, and I don't know if any menstruating woman would. If a woman is gushing, that's a hemorrhage, not a period, sweetheart. Not to get too personal, but I am a woman who experienced (I'm told by medical professionals) a far heavier flow than is "normal," and I still never gushed. Unless there's something I don't know about postpartum periods, since I never had children--but this character who is described as trying to ward off the impending "gush" is not postpartum, so no excuses. Anyway. I don't know, that kind of error is frustrating from King because I know he's a man, but a) he's married to a woman, and b) he is so meticulous about his research on other topics that it is hard to believe he couldn't find a suitable answer on this topic, but whatever.
ANYWAY, flaws aside, I really did enjoy this book. It was both new and familiar territory for King. Familiar in that there's an author character and that he's doing a lot of introspection and grappling with his past even as he engages his present. New in that I don't think King has written about the mafia or hitmen before, at least not as a main topic. So this was a fun read, and definitely interesting the direction he chose to go with it. I was engaged the whole time. There was a bit of echo with 11/22/63 in terms of assassination content and assuming new identities, but overall this was a new direction for King, and thoroughly enjoyable. I would definitely consider it worth a reread, in print form since I listened to the audio this time.
One thing that felt very weird/out of place: I remember King talking about writing this book during 2020, and mentioning having to adjust part of his plot to incorporate real-world details into it re: pandemic life/quarantine. I do not know if that means he set the book back farther in time than he wanted, or if he was exaggerating what he had to adjust. The book is set in 2019, and there is one VERY brief mention of "if they had known what the whole world would soon face" [re: quarantine/stay-at-home orders], but it felt totally irrelevant and I wondered why it was in there at all. The book starts AND ends in 2019, so I am not sure why a mention of the upcoming 2020 pandemic was needed. My best guess is that King originally set the book to occur in 2020, and had to change course when the pandemic hit, taking things back a year so all the book's events could still occur without the messiness of adding pandemic details. But he really didn't need to mention it at all, so it was weird when he did.
His female characterization continues to be lacking, which is unfortunate. In the Alice character here, there's an echo of the Beverly character from IT, and not in a good way. I don't know where King gets his ideas about how women think and behave (I struggled with this in his Mr. Mercedes series too), but he is clearly fascinated with the idea of nontraditional women who buck norms and enjoy things that are normally viewed as male pleasures, although that kind of woman is becoming less and less of an anomaly with the evolution of time. King always treats these women like they are unicorns. I always get the feeling that he's writing into these characters women he wishes he had met in life but hasn't--because they always have just a whiff of unreality about them, sort of like an alien pretending to be a human. The way he has his female characters talk about sex is one of the big indicators that King is out of his depth. Another one is the way he describes menstruation. There's a scene in this book where the woman thinks her period is coming and "runs" into the store to buy her feminine supplies before something "gushes" out. Like . . . I definitely understand not wanting to ruin a pair of underwear or pants (I have ruined plenty in my day from starting unexpectedly or not knowing I had started!), but I would never use the word "gush" to describe anything about menstruation, and I don't know if any menstruating woman would. If a woman is gushing, that's a hemorrhage, not a period, sweetheart. Not to get too personal, but I am a woman who experienced (I'm told by medical professionals) a far heavier flow than is "normal," and I still never gushed. Unless there's something I don't know about postpartum periods, since I never had children--but this character who is described as trying to ward off the impending "gush" is not postpartum, so no excuses. Anyway. I don't know, that kind of error is frustrating from King because I know he's a man, but a) he's married to a woman, and b) he is so meticulous about his research on other topics that it is hard to believe he couldn't find a suitable answer on this topic, but whatever.
ANYWAY, flaws aside, I really did enjoy this book. It was both new and familiar territory for King. Familiar in that there's an author character and that he's doing a lot of introspection and grappling with his past even as he engages his present. New in that I don't think King has written about the mafia or hitmen before, at least not as a main topic. So this was a fun read, and definitely interesting the direction he chose to go with it. I was engaged the whole time. There was a bit of echo with 11/22/63 in terms of assassination content and assuming new identities, but overall this was a new direction for King, and thoroughly enjoyable. I would definitely consider it worth a reread, in print form since I listened to the audio this time.
One thing that felt very weird/out of place: I remember King talking about writing this book during 2020, and mentioning having to adjust part of his plot to incorporate real-world details into it re: pandemic life/quarantine. I do not know if that means he set the book back farther in time than he wanted, or if he was exaggerating what he had to adjust. The book is set in 2019, and there is one VERY brief mention of "if they had known what the whole world would soon face" [re: quarantine/stay-at-home orders], but it felt totally irrelevant and I wondered why it was in there at all. The book starts AND ends in 2019, so I am not sure why a mention of the upcoming 2020 pandemic was needed. My best guess is that King originally set the book to occur in 2020, and had to change course when the pandemic hit, taking things back a year so all the book's events could still occur without the messiness of adding pandemic details. But he really didn't need to mention it at all, so it was weird when he did.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Minor: Cultural appropriation
Trigger warnings include what I've tagged above as well as a brief blackface (actually brownface) scene.