Book Review: Misery by Stephen King

Misery is a psychological horror novel, written by Stephen King. He published this book in 1987, and the book was adapted into a movie in 1990. Misery is often considered as one of Stephen King's best books. When I was 11 years old, I watched the movie adaptation of Misery on VHS. Although I can't remember the details about the movie, but I can still recall the movie kept me on the edge of my seat for 2 hours. It was one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen in my life. However, until recently, I have never read Misery the novel. Today, I would like to review this book.

Synopsis:

Do you have fans? A lot of famous people do. As for me, I am an ordinary person, and I don't think I have any fan (not that I am aware of). But I'd speculate meeting someone who claims to be your number one fan, could be a flattering and positive experience. Well, that is, unless you are Paul Sheldon, whose experience of meeting his number one fan was anything but positive.

Paul Sheldon writes historical romances. Through his Misery series, Paul became an international best-selling author. But in secret, Paul despised his own creation, especially Misery Chastain, the protagonist in the Misery series. In the fifth Misery novel, Paul killed off the protagonist in the book, hoping that he could close off the series, so he can move on and write something different.

Paul had a car accident while he was driving to Los Angeles. When he regained his consciousness, he found himself with broken legs, and lying in the house of Anne Wilkes, who rescued Paul from the wreckage. Anne also told Paul that she is his “number one fan”. Soon, Paul discovered that Anne is crazy and mentally unstable. He was in reality, imprisoned by Anne. Then Paul found out, that there are worse things than death, especially when he was under the “care” provided by Anne Wilkes, his most loyal and number one fan...

What I think about the book:

I used to think Misery the movie was terrifying. Now I think Misery the novel is petrifying. This is to say that I think the novel is scarier than the movie. As a psychological horror novel, Misery successfully terrified its readers, not with acts of violence and gores (though the book is gory), but because the story made its readers “understand”, that the antagonist, Anne Wilke, is a truly disturbing individual, someone to be feared. This understanding surrounds the protagonist in a sense of real danger, weaving a constant suspense into the entire book. The result is a page-turner! i.e. When I was reading this book, I never knew what to expect in the next page. I was terrified, I didn't want to know what was going to happen, but I just had to to know.

This book is very simple. In this instance, simplicity is a strength rather than a weakness. For the most of the book, there are only 2 characters, Paul and Anne. But the book never bored me. Instead, this simplicity allowed the story to focus on the fascinating interactions between the protagonist and the antagonist. This allowed the readers to explore the minds of the characters in depth, making them vivid and impressionable. In fact, while reading this book, I started feeling sorry for the antagonist, Anne Wilkes. This is because from reading the interactions between Paul and Anne, I saw the true depth of Anne's insanity. I was deeply disturbed by Anne, but I also felt a sense of sympathy towards her. In vice versa, while I thought what happened to Paul Sheldon (the protagonist) was horrible, but there were times when I was annoyed by Paul because he could be very arrogant on occasions. The book also depicted an interesting portrayal of Stockholm Syndrome.

Stephen King wrote many horror novels; Carrie, Pet Sematary, IT, Salem's Lot etc.. Most of them terrorized readers with waves of supernatural horrors. After I read this book, I can see why Misery is often considered as one of Stephen King's best horror novels. This book does not terrorize readers with supernatural entities such as ghosts and monsters. Instead, Misery slices and drives horror into readers' minds, with a knife of spine-chilling realism. Its serrated edge, is coated with our profound fear for human insanity.

I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy horror/thriller, or to those who are just looking to read a good book. This book will not disappoint.