Desperation by Stephen KingMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The opening to this book is truly terrifying, with the author clearly having a moment when he'd been pulled over and realized that we are truly helpless at that moment, and a police officer who chooses to take that opportunity to violate your rights or cause you harm is free to do just that with no real possibility of retribution. Officer Entragian is truly chilling in his casual, mad violence. However, as the mystery of what's going on in Desperation becomes more and more unraveled, the story seems to lose a little of its grip on the reader. There are still frightening moments, and the idea of simply seeing the stone statues is enough to warp the minds of Steve and Cynthia slowly and insidiously was effective. Some of the horror of the snakes and spiders in town were effective. I think the biggest problem was the unexplained presence of a full-on prophet in the form of David Carver, with Deus Ex Machina literally coming down to save the characters in buildup and during the climax. I think the book could have ended about 20-40 pages earlier (was it necessary to do the thing with the smoke cloud?) and having Tak completely neutered at the end after obligatorily killing off David's father seemed to sort of hinder the poignancy of the ending. A good book, particularly at the beginning before you know what's going on, but some clunkiness at the end prevents it from being great. Now to go read something a bit less horrible.
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