It’s sort of hard to be objective when a book sucks you in as hard as this one sucked me in. It’s not often anymore that I actually lose myself in a book—just straight up forget about my own existence, and become completely absorbed in a fictional one—but this one totally did that. It gave me the same feeling as The Drawing of Three, which is probably still my favorite in the series so far, though this one comes close. Roland and his ka-tet are […]
Little House on the Prairie meets the Oregon trail
3.5 stars Leah “Lee” Westfall lives on a small farm in Georgia, trying to make ends meet with her parents. The only reason they’re really managing to survive at all, is Lee’s unusual ability, she can sense gold. It calls to her and is the reason her father is known in town as “Lucky”. No one but her parents know about her gift, or so Lee believed. Then she comes home from town one day to discover both of her parents shot (her mother is […]
Welcome to Westworld
Sometimes when reading a Cormac McCarthy novel I can’t help but wonder what kind of man he is, what kind of man would create such bleak and miserable worlds? This is pointless since I know from his biography that he is to all appearances a genial and downright nice human being. And perhaps writing books like this helps him in that regard, serves as a form of exorcism, his demons expelled onto paper allowing him go on living peacefully. But these are just useless random […]
Do any men grow up or do they only come of age?
I’m taking on “The Dark Tower” series! It starts with The Gunslinger. It was reassuring to read King’s preface to the edition I picked up, in which he describes the creation of the story: he was very young, and he was very green, and it took him a very long time to finish the series. And then, as he finished, he went back and revised for clarity and consistency. I admire this, and appreciate it as a reader, and knowing that he was young and green […]