Review: Det

Det by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So this book was actually split in two and at first I wanted to review it as two books, but the second part isn't available, so FINE, I'm just gonna count it as one. Here's the review I wrote of the first part, pretty much half-way through the entire thing:

"This first part is def getting five stars, though I'm skeptical about how it will end, especially with all I've heard about King's tendency to not deliver what the build-up promises. But oh my gods, this build-up! Part of me is like "no, I shouldn't like this, flashbacks are bad", but the biggest part of me is just SO HERE FOR IT. I love how the characters are introduced as their older selves and then flashbacking to them being kids for most of the 550 pages contained in this part, with only a chapter here or there dealing with them gathering again to finish what they started but can't remember. It's just sooo well done, I'm loving it.

I am bit unsure about the heavier things it deals with, re: racism, homophobia, spousal abuse. On the one hand it's written by a white, straight male, but on the other hand I think the issues are handled pretty well? The characters may suffer, but they are CHARACTERS, well-rounded characters and not stereotypes, and no matter the perspectives I don't feel that the narrative are endorsing these things, which is always important. Mostly it's Bev's storyline that bothers me, but that has more to do with her being the only woman and that being the ONLY femane representation we really get, than it has to do with her story not being well-written.

Oh well. I told Trams I picked this up in the hopes of getting really scared and she said I shouldn't keep my hopes up, since King's books are more "thrilling pageturners" than superscare according to her ... and even though it hasn't kept me from sleeping, I'm not gonna lie: there are times when I went "oh shit" out loud because creepy shit happened. So I'm tagged it as scared the shit out of me, though it's more like a minor fright.

Will pick up the next book tomorrow. Right now they are both safely tucked in under big piles of books. It didn't scare the shit out of me, but I'm also not stupid enough to leave that scary-ass cover face up. I don't have a death-wish, you know."

It never did scare me that much. I couldn't sleep on night and started thinking about the clown, but I just went "well, I'm an adult, I wouldn't be able to see it" and went on with my life. But I'm not gonna lie and say it didn't have my heart racing.

Even though the ending wasn't as good as the first part, it's definitely worth 5 stars. We're talking 1,000 pages that are AMAZING, and then the last ~200 are not as great and well, that's still more awesome pages than a lot of authors come up with. And with the set-up I don't think it's possible to deliver an ending that's gonna match it. I didn't dislike this ending, it just wasn't as brilliant as the rest of the book.

The only things that truly bothered me was the en inconsequent tense changes throughout the book (thought I think they were deliberate), and that the one female character had to fuck all the dudes. I mean, wtf was that about? It was pretty gross and really ... not okay at all. Luckily, there was a warning for it earlier in the story, but still.

But otherwise ... I just really love how we're getting both the stories parallell. I would be skeptical of that if I knew it before hand, but it really, really works here: nothing is spoiled, and you are getting to know the characters in the clearest possible way. But again, the switch between present and past tense made it a bit confusing towards the end, which time things were happning in ... but that's the point, isn't it?

Anyway, great book, and it is not even a problem that it's 1200 pages long. It's just awesome.

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