Hello again my friends!  It's been too long that i have been able to follow up on my first Review of Stephen Kings Doctor Sleep.  

     Today I bring you a short and quickly paced read by author Norman Partridge called Dark Harvest.   This book was a really fun read, It flowed like a quick old fashioned campfire ghost story and i love that.   The book takes place in 1963 on Halloween night.  It follows the main character Pete McCormick but also follows the town itself in this strange tradition they call the run.

                    The run takes place every Halloween and pits all teenage boys from 16-19 years old out into the night to face off against the monster they call the October Boy.   This town is very strange in that they have what they call "The Line"  pretty much nobody is allowed to leave this friggin' town.  At all.   So the winner of the run not only wins their parents a brand new car and house along with free pretty much everything in this town for a full year, But the kid is allowed to leave the town.  Or you know....Maybe not.   I wont get into that but i will say i blew through this book in about an hour and although some of the "Twists" are really easy to see coming a mile away it still manages to not only make that not matter, but makes it the fun of the simplicity of the book.

   So lets get to rating this bad boy.  My review will be setup as follows.  I will judge based on :

Story

Characters

Writing

Pace

   they will be graded up to 5 stars and i will not grade or discuss the ending of the story. 

Story

★★★★

  Solid story.  If done in any lesser fashion this could have been bland and blah, not because of the actual premise but because you see one of the big story "Twists" so easily from afar.  Though Partridge pulls it off nicely and it reads like a damn fine camp fire horror story.  Quick and too the point.

Characters

★★★

  With such a small book and quick pacing you don't get a lot in the way of depth within the characters.   But it's not really a huge flaw in this type of story anyway.

Writing

★★★★★

  I must say i liked how straight forward of a story teller Norman Partridge turned out to be.  very to the point and has a very cool narrative voice that isn't the same old stale paragraphs.   It really feels like he's just sitting there telling you a story.

Pace

★★★★★

  As i have said already this is a very fast paced book at only 176 pages.

 Overall i give Dark harvest ★★★★★ 5 Stars!   I was pleasantly surprised by this book and it gives my first two reviews back to back 5 star ratings.  I recommend this book as a quick read and especially if you read it as a Halloween time book like i did.  I say give it a read and let me know what you think of the book.  After all it's only about what we all like, and i grade on nothing else but my enjoyment of the books.  Till next time, Be well. Read Well.

               Hello BookLikes Bloggers and Readers!   Welcome to my Blog and thank you for checking out my very first book review here at BookLikes.  My name is Steve Lynn as you can see at the top of this page and I hope you'll join me in my enjoyment of reading and finding more quality works to fan the fire.

                    Today we review the newest novel by the King.  Stephen King's Doctor Sleep.    This book is a sequel to the fantastic 1977 novel The Shining.   Now, I read The Shining when I was 13 or 14 years old, It is not one you forget , especially when you read it at that age.  Though it was not intended during the writing process, The Shining became a very personal and revealing book for Stephen King.  King was dealing with alcoholism and drug problems at the time and this book I think captures some of that coming out subconsciously.  Now if you have not read The Shining, I would not recommend reading Doctor Sleep, This is not a case of I have seen the Stanley Kubrick movie; I'll just go ahead and read this anyway.  No.  Stop.  I love the original novel, and being honest I love the movie as well.  Though the movie is the complete antithesis of Kings novel.

         Take the movie for what it is.  A good movie, but as an adaptation of King's novel it falls well short.  We see a progression within the story that is essential to all of Kings books.  Character!  Jack Torrence is freaking crazy from the jump in Kubrick's movie.  There is none of the deterioration of the decent but damaged family man caused by his own personal demons (booze) and the Overlook hotels demons.  So please read The Shining in order to get the most from Doctor Sleep.

        Doctor Sleep opens with our main character Danny Torrence only I believe three years or so after the events from The Shining at the Overlook hotel. It only stays in that time frame for a very short time before venturing through the adult years of Danny leading up to present day.  His struggles with alcoholism and wandering the country looking for work and running from self induced trouble.   I love the development of Danny's character through this span and it really shows a lot of the depressing truth in the children of alcoholic parents sadly turning down the same roads.  Danny eventually finds himself in New Hampshire where he finds some of the only true friends of his adult years and cleans up his problems, getting a job at a hospice when he earns the nickname Doctor Sleep from his ability to ease people in there last moments (unknown to everyone by using the shining) of life.  He shares the main stage of the book with our second main character Abra Stone.  Who is a teenage girl with a shining ability that surpasses even Danny's as a child.  The antagonist's of Doctor Sleep are a group called the True Knot.  A group that travels the country in their RV's feeding off of the "Steam" (shining) of special children like Abra.  The True Knot is led by Rose the Hat.  There is a lot more to the story then these few details but i will keep it simple and avoid any and all spoilers.  

     My review will be setup as follows.  I will judge based on :

Story

Characters

Writing

Pace

   they will be graded up to 5 stars and i will not grade or discuss the ending of the story. 

Story

★★★★★

  I really like the story for this book, It was well shaped and never felt corny or flat.  The threat is legit and even worse it's a threat that is focused. It's not the monster terrorizing the whole town, it's the monsters looking for you specifically.  Always scarier to be singled out.  Also freaking love the pirate names the True Knot have, gave it a cool tone. 

Characters

★★★★★

  Again 5 stars here.  Stephen King is a master at creating characters you really fall in with.  No different here.  Danny's character was great, and with the readers feeling of familiarity there it's like seeing a long lost friend.  Abra as well, King able to capture the character of a teenage girl and put that teenage girl in the situation with these crazy powers and basically monsters after her and it never feels false.  Kudos.  The supporting cast is well done as well especially one of my favorites, Billy Freeman.

Writing

★★★★★

  Stephen King.  Period.  Always clear and concise, never have to go back and re-read to figure out what he is saying.  You won't find many Stephen King books with this rating below 5.

Pace

★★★★

  Four stars here.  Lets face it, Even avid King fans should agree, He can get slow in the middle.  Though it's usually in great service to the book that his pacing of action and terror slows in the middle.  This is how Stephen King gets you so invested in what happens later in the book.  He takes the time to build rock solid characters over time and then starts the havoc.  Then you care what happens!  Still can't ignore that it can be a tad slow in the middle, Though this one still has a very good pace to it.

So Overall i rated Doctor Sleep ★★★★★  5 Stars!  I would recommend this book to anyone and do so with a smile on my face.  So I hope you'll go grab a copy of Doctor Sleep, and lose some reading it.  Till next time, Be well. Read Well.