2008 Book 30: Everything's Eventual

Book #:	30
Book Title:	Everything's Eventual
Author:	Stephen King
Publisher:	Scribner
Pub. Date:	2002
Pages:	459
Started:	April 16, 2008
Finished:	April 19, 2008
Time to Read:	4 Days
Back Cover / Inside Flap:	"The first collection of stories Stephen King has published since Nighmares & Dreamscapes nine years ago, Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet", King's original e-book, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade. "Riding the Bullet," published here on paper for the first time, is the story of Alan Parker, who's hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In "Lunch in the Gotham Cafe," a sparring couple's contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maitre d' gets out of sorts. "1408," the audio story in print for the first time, is about a successful writer whose specialty is "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards" or "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses," and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn't kill him, he won't be writing about ghosts anymore. And in "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French,", terror is deja vu at 16,000 feet. Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, from quitting smoking to yard sales, Stephen King is at the top of his form in the fourteen dark tales assembled in Everything's Eventual. Intense, eerie, and instantly compelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time."
Stars:	*****
Review:	It has always amazed me to see how many people absolutely, positively dislike the writings of Stephen King. From the time I read my first King novel, Carrie, back in the ninth grade, I've been convinced of his absolute genius as a writer. But there are so many people - some among my close circle of family and friends - that literally avoid this man's works like the plague, because they typecast him as a hack writer who depends on gore and guts to drive along his tales of doom. I'm here to tell you that Stephen King is so very, very much more than that. I believe that his short story collections, such as this one in particular, are the greatest testament to the depth and breadth of his writing that you can find. Not one of these fourteen short stories resembles another in the collection. Some fall into the King typecast of being gloomy and filled with guts...while others are straight from the realm of paranormal. A few make you cringe; others really make you think and wonder what you would do if those particular set of circumstances were to occur in your own life. My favorite from the collection is "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away." This short story is completely outside of what people would call King's normal genre, but it is written so bleakly, so plainly, that it's easy to become enveloped in the tale and start rooting for the hero - who really isn't a hero at all. Even though I've identified one as a favorite, I highly enjoyed all fourteen tales, and think you will, too!

If you have read or are planning to read this book, please make sure to stop back by and leave me a comment to let me know your own thoughts!

From my library to yours,

Tiffany