The Girl Who Loved Stephen King

Apparently, this is an air compressor. Who knew? I had mixed feelings about the next two Kings on the list, mainly because I am not a big fan of either self-aware fiction, or science fiction. The Blue Air Compressor  is more self aware than all the Scream  movies put together, and I Am the Doorway  is wandering the fine line between horror-sci-fi and pure science fiction. So, neither would be my choice for preferred King style, but they're on my list, so read them I must. The Blue Air Compressor This story is pretty ordinary King at first glance. A young man named Gerald Nately writes a story about the enormously fat woman he is living with. The woman finds the manuscript and laughs at it (oh dear), suggesting that she was just too much woman for Gerald to write about. Gerald takes this insult to heart, and murders her by shoving an air compressor (a piece of machinery I had to google) down her throat and essentially inflating her to death. All in all it's a fun...

It's lockdown week 2. Both reading and blogging have been a challenge this week, as my husband and I juggled setting remote learning, heading into work to look after key worker children, and trying to stop our own child from devouring her crayons. But, I'm making progress, and Carrie is tantalisingly closer every day. Although this blog post will be relatively short, Graveyard Shift feels like it needs its own entry. It doesn't really fit with any of the other stories just before or after it, and stands alone both in length and in content. Graveyard Shift This is one of King's better known short stories, partly because of the 1990 movie adapted from it. I've not seen the movie yet, so watch this space for my thoughts on it. It received a hilariously low 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, and that's a score I've rarely seen beaten. I'm hoping it fits in the 'so bad it's good' category. Fingers crossed. For those of you that aren't fa...

I'll start this post by saying that really, I suppose I ought to have started with Jumper and Rush Call, stories that King wrote with his brother when he was just twelve and submitted to the local paper. I will get to them, but as the book they're found in is on order, I thought I'd start with the first paid  piece King wrote. For those of you shouting 'where's Carrie ?', you might be surprised to know that there are a good twenty short stories for me to get through before I revisit that delicious little beast. The Glass Floor tells the story of Charles Wharton, who, after the suspicious death of his sister, visits the creepy home where she died to interrogate her husband. We quickly discover that her death was, of course, as creepy as the house it happened in. King himself describes The Glass Floor  as 'clumsy and badly written', but with a payoff ending. I think this is harsh. While the story does feel a little awkward in places, there are still...

On the 23rd March, 2020, the UK was officially placed on Coronavirus lockdown. All across the country, people wondered what they would do, stuck indoors with only their immediate family for company. Some found themselves anxiously remembering what happened to the Torrances in  The Shining.  So, what should one do when on lockdown? How does one avoid getting mallet happy? My name is Beth, and I hate being bored. After an hour stuck indoors, I am cranky. After three, I am bordering on homicidal. After a day, I could give Jack Torrance a run for his money. I knew, as soon as the announcement was made, that I needed was a new, time consuming hobby, something to distract me from the overwhelming urges to run outside and mingle, or throw my husband from a window. The Stephen King Challenge was born. All of Stephen King's published works, his books, short stories, poems, essays, and screenplays, in chronological order (or as close to it as I could get). I would hazard ...