Oh boy I have been having some bad luck with my audio picks, so I'm going for something I know I'll like, because it's Uncle Steve's new book. 

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I liked this one. I really have not read a lot of King's work but this book has been one that I have wanted to pick up for a long time. I decided to go with the audiobook since I had heard great things about the narration and I think I made a really good choice. This was a really entertaining story that kept me listening for hours at a time.

This book is told in alternating timelines. We follow a group of characters in the childhood and again as adults. The timelines worked really well with each other to tell the story of the events occurring in the town of Derry and there are some very strange events happening in that little town in Maine. I found that I liked both timelines equally and was really invested in finding out how things would work out in each. 

I really feel like I got to know all of the characters very well. There is no shortage of character development in this book. If anything, I would say that we are given too much information regarding the backgrounds of some of the characters. I mean this is a really long book and sometimes I felt like I spent hours listening to only learn one character's backstory. On one hand I really liked all the details but on the other hand the book felt too long. I liked that the main characters were all flawed individuals that had things to overcome as kids and new things to overcome as adults. 

I think that this book did a lot of things really well in addition to the characters and use of timelines. I think that it did a great job of painting a truly creepy and menacing portrait of the evil in Derry. I liked the mystery behind Pennywise and his appearances. There were some truly frightening scenes in the book which I really appreciated as well. There were a few scenes that felt so realistic that I found myself cringing as I listened to the book.

There were a few things that I didn't care for in the book. The end of the book felt really weird to me. The ending was surprisingly odd and just didn't seem to completely fit. I was also rather bothered by the sex scenes involving kids. It was just all kinds of wrong and the book would have been a lot stronger without it in my opinion. I did feel that the book was too long. I enjoyed the story but by the time I got closer to the end, I was more than ready to be done with it. 

Steven Weber did an absolutely fantastic job narrating this book. There was a very large cast of characters that he handled very well. I thought that he did an exceptional job with Bill's stutter and keeping all of the voices consistent. He added just enough of a creepy factor to the scenes that needed it. He really did such a wonderful job in bringing this story to life and I often listened to his voice for hours at a time. I would definitely listen to his narration again if given the opportunity.

I would recommend this book to others. It wasn't perfect but it was really good and I am glad that I finally took the time to listen to it. I do recommend the audiobook for anyone considering reading this book because I really do feel that the narration adds a wonderful element to the story. I do hope to read more from Stephen King in the near future.

Initial Thoughts
I liked it. This was my first time reading this book and I think I made a good choice picking up the audio version since Steven Webber does a fanstastic job with it. I did feel that the book is way too long and it really fizzled out at the end for me a bit. There were a few scenes that really made me pretty uncomfortable. 

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

It has been on my list to try for a long time. I love Stephen King and I remember watching the TV miniseries when I was in high school. However, the length of this book was always the thing that prevented me from picking it up. The book is 1,093 pages and the audio at 44 hours and 57 minutes, it is not a light read/listen. However, when I heard they were remaking this into a feature film, I decided I had to read it before it hit theaters. I’m so glad that I did. It was such a fun book.

This is the story of friendship above all else. It goes back in forth in time between when these seven kids were about eleven years old and twenty seven years later as middle aged adults. It starts with Bill’s little brother Georgie building a paper boat that he sails down the flooded storm gutters in the streets. Georgie does not survive his encounter with Pennywise the Clown. Georgie isn’t the first or the last child to go missing or be killed in Derry, Maine.

If you haven’t read the book, but have watched the miniseries, there is a second prologue that is in the book that was completely left out of the show. It is basically the preamble to how the killings start in Derry for the adult years. It also shows that Pennywise doesn’t do all of his own killing. Here, he starts a mob going after a gay couple coming out of a gay bar in the homophobic town. One of the gay men ends up dead. The clown is there, but he didn’t do the deed himself.

We learn about each of the seven members of the “losers club”, both as children and as adults. We see how all the ones who left Derry become very successful at what they do, while Mike Hanlon stays behind as the town’s librarian. It was a good thing that he did stay in town. It seems that he is the only one who remembers anything. All the others pretty much forgot everything that happened while they were in Derry. Even to the point that Bill didn’t tell his wife that his brother was murdered, just that he died. He had forgotten that his brother was murdered.

While this was a long story, I was entranced the entire time. There is not a single section of the book that I wish was shorter. Not a single part that I wish I could’ve skipped or sped through quicker. I loved learning about each of the characters, as both children and as adults. I loved watching their friendship build. Like I said, this is the story of a great friendship. Without that friendship, they never would’ve survived or won in the end (either as children or when they came back together as adults).

This story is also very, very creepy. It is a Stephen King book, after all. This book is full of some pretty creepy things. I won’t go into details, one, so as not to spoil any surprises for anyone who decides to try this book, two, so as not to gross out anyone who maybe isn’t much of a horror fan. Let’s just say that King didn’t pull any punches.

Narration

This is the first books that I’ve listened to with Steven Weber. I have to admit, he did an amazing job. I don’t know if you could’ve found a better person to narrate this book. Not only did he have to voice these characters as eleven-year-olds and as thirty-eight-year-olds. He also had to handle the many different voices from Richie Tozier, who was constantly making different voices. While there was only one girl in the “Losers Club” there were mothers and other women that he had to navigate including the mother of Eddie Kaspbrak, who sorta reminded me of Howard Wolowit’s mother (from the Big Bang Theory). Another thing that I really liked was how he would change his pace to help set the scene. There are several scenes where the kids are really scared and they are maybe running from Pennywise or something else (he didn’t always appear as a clown). He would start talking much faster as the scene intensified and then would come back to a normal pace once the scariness was over. I think he really helped me get through this book. As much as I loved the story, it would be very hard to get through a story of this length reading, but listening to it really helped bring it to life. I didn’t want it to end.

“Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!”

From page one, through to the final sentence, this book had me Hooked!

Jack sawyer is now a man, and a sexy one at that.

"Black House" is the second collaboration between King and Straub, and is the sequel to their first novel, "The Talisman".
If you've read Talisman and if you're one of King's Constant Readers  Black House answers lots of questions like what happened next to the Talisman's characters? who or what is the Crimson King? and it also, Tantalisingly raises lots of new ones, primarily relating to King's Dark Tower series!

However, if you're new to Stephen King, don't worry Black House is also rewarding in its own right, which keeps the reader turning pages as ex-cop Jack Sawyer races to find a young boy kidnapped by a serial killer. Sawyer must fight his personal demons, work with the town's residents and challenge a few bad guys (from this world and others), if he is to save the victim (turns out there could be a lot more at stake too...)
Set in a small Winsconsin town, the novel features some superb characterisation and truly great narration from both legend authors.

 
As a sequel, I believe "Black House" is superior to its predecessor it's not as firmly set in the fantasy genre. the book has a great plot and fast paced storyline.  just like it's 1st one. King and Straub will have all There readers desperate for more!