If if you’ve ever had ‘that’ experience at the library or some long forgotten Borders or Book World shelves, then you know what you’re getting into. If you despise Lovecraft, you might want to skip on through.Īudible is an Amazon company that churns out what is the modern day equivalent of books on tape. Like I said, if you love Lovecraft, then Stephen King’s Revival is definitely the book for you. It was a bit of a thrill to catch the first few strings and wonder ‘Wait, is King really…’ and then being rewarded at the end of the novel with such a passionate homage was worth the price of admission (or credit!).

What started out as subtle started to get louder and louder until a cacophony blasted from the page. The vocabulary is Lovecraftian, the set ups, the inter-linking, and even the mythos all play a role in Revival. The writing feels decidedly an act of love for horror years gone by. Without major spoilers–there are deep Lovecraftian themes and vibes here.

What happens next might seem a bit of a forced pairing, but, as with much of King’s work, it seems to ‘fit’. A little bit of tragedy can go a long way to expose what people say they believe (or maybe do but just in good times) and what they actually believe when the (non-Cow) chips are down.Īfter what seems like a ‘so long and thanks for all the fish’ moment, we zoom past the years (years seemingly kinder to some than others). Speaking of tearing down, the Rev might be full Jesus at the start, but he has the doubt and fear of most of us. In the end, it’s that small town nature that really builds Jamie Morton (the boy) and maybe tears him down a bit, the way only small towns do. Imagine a small town where the only thing of note that happens is Cow-Chip bingo (it’s that ‘game’ where you bet on where a cow will poop…no, really…). Mind you, Reverend Jacobs (for those of us not Church minded) means that the man can marry and his wife is the talk of the town. With Revival, though, we get an odd couple paring of a reverend and a boy. Every time Stephen King opens a story in a small town, you just know them folk are in for a world of hurt. I’m pretty sure I’m not spoiling anything here. In many ways, Revival is a lot like other Stephen King books - small towns are horrible. We start our journey somewhere in the 1960s in some small town. I will discuss the narrator in a moment, but first let’s take a dive into the world of Stephen King’s Revival.

If you’ve never heard of Lovecraft, then read on!Ī gentle reminder, this review is for the Revival audio book version ready by Lemmy Constantine. If you love Lovecraft, this is definitely the book for you – don’t read another second of this review and just buy the book. Revival by Stephen King comes by the way of Audible for this review and its seems to be pretty polarizing.

Revival by stephen king