A review by jbmorgan86
The Talisman by Peter Straub, Stephen King

3.0

This story was fun but bloated. A 300-page story was dragged out into a 735-page story. The premise is great: a kid flip flops between our world and a parallel universe to save his dying mother (all while being pursued by his maniacal uncle). Unfortunately, the execution wasn’t great. The middle of the book just draaaaaggggged on as the boy (Jack) spends time virtually imprisoned in a redneck bar and then in an abusive orphanage. There was a lot of squandered potential here. King/Straub barely even touch the surface of the fictional world they created. There some homages to Tom Sawyer and Lord of the Rings and some tie-ins with the Dark Tower that make it fun. The book, overall, was fine but it definitely doesn’t even crack my top 10 Stephen King books list.