Title: Revival
Author: Stephen King
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 390
Rating: 3/5
This is one of King’s more recent books and so that’s probably why I hadn’t picked it up until now. It’s been sitting on my shelves for a while, but I always have a big pile of King books ready to go at any one time. I wasn’t particularly impressed by this one, but then I wasn’t expecting too much of it either. In fact, it’s one of the few King books that I just haven’t really heard anything about.
Here, the main themes are rock ‘n’ roll and religious leadership, as epitomised by the two main characters. What’s weird about that is that it ended up reminding me of Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, King’s son, because the main character in that had similarities to this one, at least at times.
Honestly, I couldn’t recommend this book over any of King’s others, but it’s not necessarily bad. It’s just not got the magic that some of King’s other work has, and I don’t think it does a great job of representing him. At the same time, other than disagreeing with some of the science and not enjoying the way it basically turned into Frankenstein, it was decent enough. I read it in the space of two or three days and it didn’t drag.
So all in all, I’m glad I picked this up because I’m still working through King’s back catalogue, but I’m also glad that I didn’t go out of my way to get to it. At least it was better than Black House, which he co-wrote with Peter Straub, and it didn’t waffle on for as long, either. In fact, it’s relatively short for a Stephen King novel, but other than that it does follow some of his tried and tested formulae. It has a lacklustre ending for a start, which is pretty much a King tradition.
I probably wouldn’t recommend reading this unless you’re already a King fan, but if you are a King fan then go ahead when you get round to it. Look on the bright side. At least it isn’t From a Buick 8. And it also has a little excerpt of Bag of Bones in the back of it, if that’s of interest.