Book Review - Desperation by Stephen King

Title: Desperation
Author: Stephen King
Genre: Horror/ Fiction/ Thriller
Published: 1996
 
Description: There’s a place along Interstate 50 that some call the loneliest place on Earth. It’s know as Desperation, Nevada. It’s not a very nice place to live. It’s an even worse place to die. Let the battle against evil begin. Welcome to… Desperation,
 
Review: I have read my fair share of Stephen King books. I picked “Desperation” up for a few euros at a thrift store. I’m always a bit intimidated by King’s book, especially when they are longer. “Desperation” was such a book.
 
The book starts with Mary Jackson and her husband Peter who are stopped by a cop on an empty desert road. When a bag of drugs is found in their car, they have to go with the cop to the nearest town: Desperation. Locked in a jail cell, together with some other travelers, Mary and Peter realize that the ended up in a nightmare and the person holding them captive is a lot more than a crazy cop.  
 
King takes an everyday, normal happening and slowly builds up the tension and the scares, while you start realizing that this cop, Entragian, is not really sound minded. Something is really wrong with him. With the entire town in fact. This kind of creeping tension is something Stephen King is very good at.
 
King writes so vividly, you can always easily picture the characters and especially the setting. Desperation really came to life in my head.
 
I have never hated or dislikes a Stephen King. A complaint I do have about some of his books is the length. For “It” that wasn’t a problem at all, even though this book was almost 1200 pages long. With almost 600 pages, “Desperation” felt too long though. There were moments in the book that felt dragged out, I lost interest several times in the book. But it always picked up.
 
In the end, I’m glad I finished it. But “Desperation” is not one of my favorites nor is it one of King’s best books. If you have already read a ton of Stephen King, yes, you need to read this. You used to his work. If you’ve never read anything by him, this is not the book to start with.
 
Rating: 3/ 5