Hello, friends! I’m back at it with another Stephen King review. I finished this one yesterday, and wanted to hop on here before I forgot everything. I got this book from the library on Friday and was able to finish it Monday. It undoubtedly suck me in! I also want to make an observation and express my confusion about something: my library only has Stephen King books from the 21st century, honestly books probably starting from the 2010s and on. I am confused by this! I am new to reading his books, but none of the ones at my local library are ones that I had ever heard of before! No It, Carrie, Cujo, Misery… none of it! I really am interested in reading Carrie, so perhaps I’ll see if I can procure a copy on Thriftbooks. Since minimizing my life majorly, I’ve been trying to borrow books as opposed to buying them outright, because often they are books that I do not care to return to. I will check Libby first and then assess. I will keep you posted!
Firstly, this book does something that I love love love. It spans DECADES. When we begin, our narrator, Jamie Morton, is six years old. When we finish up the book, he is in his fifties. Truly, it is difficult to give a summary of this book, because there is just so much that happens that I do not want to spoil. Simply put, a new pastor, Charles Jacobs, moves to Jamie’s town. He will be in and out of Jamie’s life throughout the decades, always causing big things to happen.
This could perhaps be considered a spoiler, but I do want to add that I was petrified in the beginning that Charles Jacobs was going to be a child predator of sorts and prey on Jamie, but this does not happen. I know it’s a horror book, but that is one topic that I refuse to read about, and I wanted to include that here in case anybody else feels the same way.
Between Revival and Joyland, I am falling hard for King’s prose style. I don’t generally read horror books, but I enjoy the non-horror aspects of his books so much, that I can’t help but read more! (Which is not a new thing for me — any horror movie that is also a period piece, I’m IN. I told my brother that I really enjoyed the first Annabelle movie and he goes, “You just like the 1960s aesthetic!” Fair.) I’ve seen a lot of people say that there is too much fluff or non-horror aspects to his books, but I love it! I absolutely love the coming-of-age aspects of both of my last reads. The characters all feel so incredibly real to me and I became so invested in their lives and the world around them. I mentioned this in my Joyland post, but I much prefer books with minimal technology interfering with the plot. It’s the difference between a high school reunion where you haven’t seen each other in decades and completely lost touch with all of your peers, as opposed to a modern day high school reunion where you’ve stayed up-to-date with every single person that you graduated with via Facebook or Instagram. This book featured some internet sleuthing and email, but it wasn’t too much. There was still much to be gleaned from actual conversations between the characters. Jamie comes from a large family and I love the interactions between the entire family. Though they struggle, they all dearly love each other which is heartwarming (and heartbreaking at times…) to see.
As you, my dear reader, may guess, I do not have nerves of steel when it comes to horror media. I’m probably the person in the theater screaming the most and the loudest, and watch many scenes through my fingers. That being said… I do not think that this book was as frightening to me as it was to others. When I was reading other people’s thoughts on this book, I came across quite a few people saying that this was the scariest book that they have ever read, King, or otherwise. Personally, I was not frightened of this book. I was engaged for the entire read, but I was not scared. Honestly, reading the reviews of people being scared made me more scared than the book itself! SO much happens in this book that I think it’s best to go in as blind as possible, so I don’t want to divulge too much. I will say that perhaps other people’s fears are different than mine. The main fear that this book plays on is not one that I share. If you read the book, you will know what I mean.
A quote that I enjoyed…
“That’s how you know you’re home I think. No matter how far you’ve gone from it, or how long you’ve been in some other place. Home is where they want you to stay longer.”
There was another part of the book where Jamie made a Fox Mulder quote that for the life of me, I cannot find in the book again or even online. Nevertheless, I love whenever anything has an X-files mention. (For my eighteenth birthday I got a UFO tattoo as an homage to the show — the love is real.)
Revival is a book that is seemingly rather polarizing. Many people LOVED it and it seems that many people did not. I would consider myself somewhere in the middle. I really enjoyed it and was able to read it incredibly quickly, but I did not find it life-changing or horribly frightening. I would probably give it 4/5 stars. Absolutely loved the prose and the coming-of-age story. It certainly made me want to continue reading King’s work!
Have you read Revival or any other Stephen King books? What are your favorites? I would LOVE to hear!
XOXO,
Mattie Mae
Midwest Mattie 