A review by geve_
Just After Sunset by Stephen King
3.0
I read a couple of Stephen King short story collections when I was quite young, and I can still remember a handful of those stories because they were so great (at least they were to tween me, haven't reread to confirm). King lost his luster to me when I read IT, although I have still given him a chance several more times, which has been a mistake. Some of his stuff is pretty good but most of it is not to my taste. Something I'll say about him, he is a pretty good writer. He is good at writing normal guy characters, and getting at the interior of every-man rural men. And he can format a story well and make it feel pretty real, in that it feels like real places and real people. And he's much better at writing short stories than novels. So since it's October, and my library always has King audio books available, I figured I'd borrow this and give it a shot.
It was a mistake. These were honestly very meh. Several were straight up bad. The stationary bike one was so long and not at all interesting or scary. one or two were kinda touching, which I hate. Some of these stories needed to get ot the point sooner, they dragged and gave a lot of unnecessary buildup. What's with king stories about fat people and/or people losing weight? Seems like this is a theme. In general, I didn't like these stories, although i didn't exactly hate them either, they're just generally meh. There's really not a single one that sticks out as good to me at all.
Unfortunately, the file I borrowed was slightly corrupted and there were a few stories I couldn't listen to and it looks like they might have been the good ones: The cat from hell and N. There were a couple others, but these two stuck out. One of my friends has told me about N, and based on that rec, I was pretty disappointed that it was one that I wasn't able to hear.
So based on that, this is a 2.5. Nothing particularly good here, but nothing egregiously bad either I suppose.
It was a mistake. These were honestly very meh. Several were straight up bad. The stationary bike one was so long and not at all interesting or scary. one or two were kinda touching, which I hate. Some of these stories needed to get ot the point sooner, they dragged and gave a lot of unnecessary buildup. What's with king stories about fat people and/or people losing weight? Seems like this is a theme. In general, I didn't like these stories, although i didn't exactly hate them either, they're just generally meh. There's really not a single one that sticks out as good to me at all.
Unfortunately, the file I borrowed was slightly corrupted and there were a few stories I couldn't listen to and it looks like they might have been the good ones: The cat from hell and N. There were a couple others, but these two stuck out. One of my friends has told me about N, and based on that rec, I was pretty disappointed that it was one that I wasn't able to hear.
So based on that, this is a 2.5. Nothing particularly good here, but nothing egregiously bad either I suppose.