I feel like a decent chunk of the first 200 pages or so could be cut without losing anything particularly important. On the other hand, in some ways I enjoyed the beginning more than the end (once

the quest starts

). The (real) world had an interesting retro-contemporary feel; I'm not sure if that's because most of the King I've read was set in the 80s, because Charlie felt like a teen from the 80s, if it was intentional or just because King's... of advanced age.

Overall an excellent story, though I definitely expected

Charlie to destroy the passage completely

at the end.