Reviews

The Outsider by Stephen King

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samscha0ticlife's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

mkiani465's review against another edition

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4.0

3.5 stars*

alicrain's review against another edition

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3.0

Unfortunately, I think this will be my last Stephen King book. While I love him as an author, the vast majority of King’s characters are these super gritty, predictable stereotypes...I just don’t relate to his characters anymore and find that important as of late. I know, I know, King is not known for his hope-filled stories, but the last 3 I’ve read (11/22/63, Mr. Mercedes, The Outsider) have felt so heavy. Maybe they’ve always been this way and I’m just now noticing, I don’t know. Anyway, I will forever love his older writings (It, Misery, and The Green Mile being my favorites), but I’m looking for another author to get my suspense/thriller fix from now on.

ketchupmayo's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

constant__reader's review against another edition

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4.0

LOVED this book second time around. And of course Holly is one of my favourite characters so it was really fun having her be involved with the case. I was in the mood for a crime thriller with some supernatural thrown in and this definitely delivered!

4 out of 5

ronan_lynch's review against another edition

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2.0

Firstly, the plot is just a recycled version of [b:It|830502|It|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334416842l/830502._SY75_.jpg|150259].

Secondly, the narration of Holly's voice was H O R R I B L E.

Thirdly, this was just overall unexciting.

Spoiler

At first it makes it seem like there is going to be an explanation based in reality, but then it switched to a supernatural being.

bUT, as it turns out, Stephen King never OUTLINES. It is my belief, Stephen King wrote the first part and then realized he has no idea how to solve the crimes

Spoiler

based in reality, therefore he decided to do the supernatural spin.

Fourthly, does Stephen King have a collection of weird sex kinks and fetishes? Does he secretly love writing about children having been killed and raped or is he just fulfilling the market's demand for such plots? Honestly, the kid could have been killed in some other gruesome way, yet somehow rape & co is ✧✧✧ i n t e r e s t i n g ✧✧✧. I guess I'm mainly pissed off, because there was a somewhat graphic description of it in the first 10 minutes, then I googled h o w sexual does it get (in order to know if I should DNF it or not) and one of the Goodreads users had gone as far as to have recommended it in a discussion asking for Stephen King books containing NO sexual content. So I went on reading, and ..??!?!.//?1?!#
Honestly, the book does nothing to properly discuss such atrocious crimes or to add some philosophical or psychological musings on the subject. It's just there, because Stephen King in his old age no longer perceives such things as tasteless. Let me rephrase, rape/sexual assault isn't horror in a f u n way. It's just purely disgusting unless you give it some additional structure like [b:Lolita|7604|Lolita|Vladimir Nabokov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377756377l/7604._SY75_.jpg|1268631]. But this book just has soppy, meh-like detectives. Bye.