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ayane

Member
Mar 26, 2010
13
3
I've had the book for a few years now and never got past the part where Annie made him drink the water in the bucket...

She's too realistic (hence, too scary) for me to finish.

Finally promised myself this year that I'll finish it. And I did finish it yesterday (while waiting for an interview... I have to admit, I don't think I got the job. I got too spooked by the book to think clearly. Worth it, though.)

It was the hardest Stephen King book I had to read. As I said, her being too realistic made her sooooo scary for me. *shivers*
 

Rockym

Well-Known Member
Feb 11, 2012
77
236
I just finished reading this again after about twenty years or so. I remembered the movie better than the book as there was one major change in his
punishment
.

There was more than one

Annie didn't make him drink from the bucket of cleaning water and she also didn't cut off his thumb in the movie, to name a couple.
 

Doc Creed

Well-Known Member
Nov 18, 2015
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This was the first King book that I bought and subsequently read. I started it one afternoon and read for 7 hours in a daze. I remember being shocked at certain scenes and giddily horrified at others. Stopping for bathroom breaks and dinner was like coming out of a fog. Moments that I really like are the times Paul despises himself for sucking up to Annie and his resentment for acknowledging his need for her...and her drugs. It was brilliant how King demonstrates the power and structure of writing through Paul Sheldon's own efforts at the typewriter. I really see the literary merit in this novel and think it deserves status alongside my thumbed copy of The Collector by John Fowles and Deliverance by James Dickey. So vivid!
 

Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
2,906
6,242
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I've told this story elsewhere (more than once, I think), but I'll share it again for the new kids.

As Doc above, Misery was also my first Stephen King read. It was given to me by one of my best friends who had never been much of a reader (that I knew of, at any rate) but had taken to reading because he was bed-ridden for two months with two broken legs he got as a result of being stupid at work. I got engrossed in the story immediately
that whole business at the beginning about Paul's pain seeming like pilings uncovered by a receding tide, if I remember
and had difficulty putting it down even for a minute.

I don't specifically remember relating the story itself with the idea of my friend being essentially trapped in a bed, himself, while he was reading it, but I think about it now and probably imagine it a lot worse than it really was. In any case, when I was finished with Misery, I went galloping off in search of more like it. And . . . well . . . you guys know what I found.
 
Last edited:
Dec 17, 2015
11
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Heck yeah! I just finished my first read through of this the other week. I was horrified by the gruesomeness all the way through. And surprised at many turns. Anne is terrifying. Paul's situation is terrifying. The picture Stephen King paints is a beautiful terror. I read an article that said he was battling addiction at the time he wrote this and that Anne Wilkes is Cocaine. I thought that was a phenomenal analogy to being addicted.
 
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Owenk

Well-Known Member
Nov 13, 2014
351
2,060
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I have to admit I am struggling with this one. KListening to the unabridged talking book ratehr than reading but it struck me almost like it started part way throguh the story and now I am really struggling to get into the narrative. Probably my "fault" rather than Mr King's but something just isn't gelling for me.

Also not terribly keen on the music between "chapters."
 
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