Spoilers ahead!! I loved this book. That being said, I totally agree about the ending. I think everything with Jack Hoskins was good, but in a way his final confrontation felt much more climactic than the outsider's. The confrontation with the outsider was very short lived and his "defeat" was pretty disappointing. I don't think the creature is the only reason this book is compared to IT (although there is a striking similarity there, what with a child eating shapeshifting monster and all). There are lots of little similarities throughout. The final battle in dark underground tunnels where the creature is. Characters coming to terms with the existence of the supernatural. This book is very similar to IT when compared to, say, the Shining. Not sure why people dislike the cover, though. Personally, I think it's super intriguing. Is it because the picture is upside down, maybe?? I have seen far worse book covers, those with bad art or simply boring.
Austin Thomas Films This sounds very stupid but I noticed another similarity to IT. I might be over analyzing but if the outsider eats one kid every three ish months as the April to July timeline suggests that would be 4 kids a year so roughly 100ish kids in 27 years and in IT I don’t remember whether this was in the middle of one of the interlude chapters or when Mike first meets with Losers Club as adults but he mentions how roughly 100ish kids disappear during ITs cycles
Agree. Shooting between Jack, Ralph and other guys were much more better and climatic that confrontation with Outsider. I wanted see Outsider to show his power. Jack was my definit favorite character.
DANGER: SPOILERS AHEAD. TURN BACK NOW. I MEAN IT. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! I honestly did not expect Terry Maitland to get shot. Mr. King pulled a complete Psycho on us. Really great twist he did there.
I've always seen this book in stores (when stores where open.) Thumped through it a bit, never did buy it. I think picking it up from one of the many libraries near me is a good idea.
I love classic Stephen King; but his newer stuff has been lackluster, there are exceptions, Mr. Mercedes was pretty good; but the last couple have been "flat" aka The Dome!
The “flat ending” issue is how I felt about the Stand, especially. Phenomenal build up, almost a month of my life invested in the characters, wondering how on earth they could face someone like Randall Flagg, and the final confrontation was entertaining but kind of a dud in comparison to the expectation.
I’m not going to lie, after reading Bazaar of Bad Dreams I thought King might be running out of steam. He is 70 after all, so it had to come at some point. Maybe he needs to stop publishing however many books he does a year and take it slower. Quality over quantity ya know?
I don't know what to make of a book review of a middle-aged man wearing a Superhero hat, but it's definitive enough and yet vague enough in detail to make something of it, without being spoilered too much.
I don’t like room temperature coke at the end. 😫😂😂😂 With the HBO rendition of the book do you think they’ll spunk or make the ending better than the book?
Holy cow dude I just read Mr Mercedes it was some good shit it was a lot of fun. You ever read that one? I don’t usually read Post 1990 SK but man what a treat. Say you want to talk on Under Debbie’s blue umbrella sometime tee hee hee?
I am on the fence on purchasing this so this is why I came here. I trust your opinions as I have watched some of the Dark Tower videos and IT and think you are spot on.
I agree. Im disappointed towards the end and abandoned it...i started reading Stephen King aged16 and for years ive waited for new books coming out, im 53 now and honestly some of the best reads ever have been by him
I know SK has some problems with his endings, and we all know that he already knows about it. I think he already said that he cares about the journey the most, rather than the ending itself. Now, I know the ending it's very important, but damn he does bring us really good journies
I think this is a part of the tower cause spoilers in the conversation between the outsider and Ralph someone mentions ka which If you remember it's a big thing in the tower universe just a little connect I found so if that means that that's connected to the tower then that explains Brady heartsfields powers in end of watch cause that's connected to the tower the tower is connected to the castle rock storys which one of them is the dead zone and remember Johnny Smith got injured and that's how he got his powers so you see what I'm getting at for a in depth analysis I suggest you watch edward lorns the stephen king theorist episodes cause he goes more in depth but that's what I think I think E lorn has said my points before so I might be rehashing his points but to me it does make sense anyways anyways good review as always frosty
There was a boring part for about 200 pages when they're sitting around discussing things, and then the ending ... yeah. I had to literally go back and reread the page b/c I missed it. lol
I got about halfway through this book and I just couldn''t continue. I found it very very slow and after my mum had read it she told me the ending and ofcourse it was exactly as I predicted. I am a King fan, and I'm currently half way through Blaze and loving it. This book (which on paper i should have loved since its crime genre and King) just did not do it for me.
Totally agree about the desperation feel the caves the cave in being part of the past and I even kept expecting tak to pop out at any time even listing to the audiobook I’d hear tat and think I heard tak and get excited for nothin .
I'm a huge fan, my audio book collection is 80% SK. But yeah, most of his stuff ends pretty flat...Bag of Bones ending was good.... enjoying Outsider so far, am trying really hard to not watch a spoiler.
The book starts off good but now I'm on page 406 and I'm beginning to hate it. I've read a lot of King books, almost all of his novels and I wanted to ask you do you think Stephen King actually wrote this book? I have to tell you reading this the writing style, structure and language is not the Stephen King that I recall. Maybe his wife is writing his books now or someone else but I'm 95% certain that SK didn't write this. It's not his voice. I've also felt this way about a few other ones that he recently put out.
I feel like King's writing has suffered since he won that prestigious literary award. It's as if he's now trying too hard to write literature instead of just telling a great story.
I heard the audiobook and I agree that the book isn't the greatest, but it is still rather good. I have to agree on the ending though, he did the same with the running man, a very flat ending.
Helpful review and all, but literally face palmed during that bizarre album analogy. "Hit" songs are usually chosen for how well they reflect the tone and theme of the album. I know a lot of times those songs inspired the album, but that absolutely does not mean the other songs will be less dynamic. Kind of like how King once described Dreamcatcher as being written just so that he could write that disturbing bathroom scene. Lol, I'm sure he was exaggerating, but that's a pretty damn good confession on the nature of art and inspiration for you.
I must say that for me the original Scribner cover was one of the best things about this book. I read/listened through the whole Hodges trilogy, would give it a solid 3 Stars in total. This quasi standalone however, only had a few exciting moments for me. I couldn't finish it, just had to stop at about 3/4 through. It had intreresting characters and dialogue, interesting general story, but it was dragged out way too long for my taste, and I simply got very bored with it, and decided to not waste another minute. One of a few of his that I couldn't bring myself to finish. The weakest point of it is the desperate need of King to litter his work with political commentary. It isn't excessively done here, but it's there. It greatly takes away from a timeless universal appeal and I think it abuses this fictional work as a means to make a political statement, if only even slightly. As this book deals with abuse itself, it is soemwhat ironic, and a weak thing to do.
This book was pretty disappointing and it kind of felt as though he didn’t write it. I’ve read SK for 36 years and I know his voice very well and though parts of TO were interesting and unique, it fell flat. And the ending was awful. Well, then Elevation came along and it made TO seem like a Pulitzer. I hated that book. This year we now have The Institute. And it is SK at his best. Honestly, it made me so damn happy. And the ending was satisfying and perfect.
I have to agree the story overall is great 👍 Great pace,great characters and a cant put down sort of feel to it But the ending really is classic stephen king lol 10 pages 😂
A really good read, but I did find it kind of jarring mixing the two genre's. I just have a hard time believing that no nonsense detective ralph Anderson could be talked into going on a quest to find a mythical being.
I thought tons of things happened. I got locked in to the detective narrative start to finish and the supernatural stuff (even though I’m not super big on that kind of thing) was pretty good, though not fantastic.very good book, 4/5. The main problem with supernatural forces is that usually the supernatural force is evil with few or no boundaries or definition, so there are too many outs for the evil and for the good people. If the evil is really that powerful, why not just kill everybody while they sleep early on. And the hand of god comes down at the end of the Stand... well that was easy, where was god early in the story. The main thing about the supernatural is that it doesn’t fucking exist. And people in real life who believe in it, they use the same fuzzy terminology so that reality can’t impinge on their make believe Santa Claus world. And when most horror or sci fi uses supernatural it better be done well.
Great review!!🤙🏽 I would agree that the super natural being within The Outsider is in no way shape or form like Pennywise! However, Great video 👍🏽 if you are reading this go check out my Stephen King collection on my channel I have every single novel and short story collection he has published up to date! With a few golden nuggets that you as a fellow constant reader are bound to enjoy!! 🤟🏽
Stephen King’s Can of Worms medium.com/@JacquesCoulardeau/stephen-kings-can-of-worms-2ffa97a99d5b STEPHEN KING - THE OUTSIDER - 2018 This is the fourth volume of a trilogy that we all know, the trilogy of Bill Hodges, the private investigator. Bill Hodges is now dead (pancreatic cancer) and it is his associate Holly Gibney who assumes this new episode, though she only gets into the picture in the second half of the novel. The tone then is rather relaxed and it is essentially a murder case, an odious murder case. . . If you really want to know more about him and his work you can always get to my own book, Stephen King, The Maverick Rapscallion, Kindle edition B07DMYT1VG, and you will be able to delve, dive and even sink in this horror literature that is the conscience of our modern times. . .
"IT" was a boring (audio) book this "The Outsider" .And yes that cover is more than crap . That supernatural being ,was stolen it's called " SINT " the Dutch version watch this : ruclips.net/video/lYCBKgzuNak/видео.html
Your logic is dumb not everyone can read every book they want to they usually come to reviews to find if they may like it no matter how long a book has been out don't mean tons of people read it look at war and peace been out forever don't mean everyone read it just cause it's been out for decades
You should definitely do a top 10 or top 5 favorite Stephen King books.
yes please ! top 10
I agree!!!
I love this cover ♥️
Spoilers ahead!!
I loved this book. That being said, I totally agree about the ending. I think everything with Jack Hoskins was good, but in a way his final confrontation felt much more climactic than the outsider's. The confrontation with the outsider was very short lived and his "defeat" was pretty disappointing.
I don't think the creature is the only reason this book is compared to IT (although there is a striking similarity there, what with a child eating shapeshifting monster and all). There are lots of little similarities throughout. The final battle in dark underground tunnels where the creature is. Characters coming to terms with the existence of the supernatural. This book is very similar to IT when compared to, say, the Shining.
Not sure why people dislike the cover, though. Personally, I think it's super intriguing. Is it because the picture is upside down, maybe?? I have seen far worse book covers, those with bad art or simply boring.
Austin Thomas Films This sounds very stupid but I noticed another similarity to IT. I might be over analyzing but if the outsider eats one kid every three ish months as the April to July timeline suggests that would be 4 kids a year so roughly 100ish kids in 27 years and in IT I don’t remember whether this was in the middle of one of the interlude chapters or when Mike first meets with Losers Club as adults but he mentions how roughly 100ish kids disappear during ITs cycles
I totally agree the battle with the outsider, was really quick and easy to miss, the jack Hoskins battle was way more intense than the the outsider’s.
Agree. Shooting between Jack, Ralph and other guys were much more better and climatic that confrontation with Outsider. I wanted see Outsider to show his power. Jack was my definit favorite character.
The premise reminded me more of The Dark Half rather than IT. But as I think about it, the books feels more like a combination of the two.
The cover was amazing 🤷♀️
Right
I like the paperback cover with someone standing in a reflection bug no one there
I just got the book the other day I am 125 pages in and I really like it a whole lot. I can't wait to read more. your review are great!
Heard they're making this into an HBO series. Should be dope!
DANGER: SPOILERS AHEAD. TURN BACK NOW. I MEAN IT. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
I honestly did not expect Terry Maitland to get shot. Mr. King pulled a complete Psycho on us. Really great twist he did there.
Dude you should do a 'Recommended reading order of Stephen King books' or something like that
Good idea
what you talking about the cover is amazing it instantly grabbed my attention in barnes and
nobles and even play a part in the story
The final confrontation reminded me of the "Salem's Lot" final confrontation. A lot of good build up resolved rather quickly. Love your King reviews!
I've always seen this book in stores (when stores where open.) Thumped through it a bit, never did buy it. I think picking it up from one of the many libraries near me is a good idea.
The first quarter of the book reminds me of an episode of SVU
Also I liked the cover
I love your shit Knives but i need spoilers
I love classic Stephen King; but his newer stuff has been lackluster, there are exceptions, Mr. Mercedes was pretty good; but the last couple have been "flat" aka The Dome!
Holding out for institute
His newer stuff is so much BETTER!!!!
After drifting off after the first 200 or so pages, the novel picks back up near the end when they get inside the cave.
The “flat ending” issue is how I felt about the Stand, especially. Phenomenal build up, almost a month of my life invested in the characters, wondering how on earth they could face someone like Randall Flagg, and the final confrontation was entertaining but kind of a dud in comparison to the expectation.
I enjoy your reviews. Are you going to review the HBO Outsider TV series?
Love your hat and love the video! Subscribed!
The cover is so amazing , just love it
I love your reviews of King!!!😍😍😍😍
I am wondering what the difference are between this supernatural Being vs pennywise?
I’m not going to lie, after reading Bazaar of Bad Dreams I thought King might be running out of steam. He is 70 after all, so it had to come at some point. Maybe he needs to stop publishing however many books he does a year and take it slower. Quality over quantity ya know?
I loved this book. I agree a little about the end, but the book was good.
I don't know what to make of a book review of a middle-aged man wearing a Superhero hat, but it's definitive enough and yet vague enough in detail to make something of it, without being spoilered too much.
The Bill Hodges Trilogy has awesome US covers.
other bill hodges books???????
@@anthonygrimm6612 there is 3
@@turtleanton6539 Very cool. I had no idea.
The Coke analogy was spot on! I felt exactly the same.
Love your videos. Could you review Skeleton Crew?
Agreed
I don’t like room temperature coke at the end. 😫😂😂😂
With the HBO rendition of the book do you think they’ll spunk or make the ending better than the book?
Holy cow dude I just read Mr Mercedes it was some good shit it was a lot of fun. You ever read that one? I don’t usually read Post 1990 SK but man what a treat. Say you want to talk on Under Debbie’s blue umbrella sometime tee hee hee?
Why is my book red
I can't find that hat anywhere!!! 😢
can some one explain the title
I am on the fence on purchasing this so this is why I came here. I trust your opinions as I have watched some of the Dark Tower videos and IT and think you are spot on.
If you read King then you have to read this one too!
Hey Frosty, can you do regulators and desperation
The ending was a complete circle from Mr. Mercedes..... Think about it
i agree completely. the end was a let down.
Most of King’s recent writings are more like crime/thriller novels rather than horror.
Just finished the book today. Loved the last 100 pages.
Solid review and Solid analogy XD
Guess we'll just have to disagree with the cover :-P
Great job not spoiling this books ending but spoiling other king endings
I agree. Im disappointed towards the end and abandoned it...i started reading Stephen King aged16 and for years ive waited for new books coming out, im 53 now and honestly some of the best reads ever have been by him
Really appreciate the no spoiler review! I'll put that book low on my priority list. Thank you !
new subscriber,. love how you hate the cover XD you should do your top thrillers for 2018,.,
I know SK has some problems with his endings, and we all know that he already knows about it. I think he already said that he cares about the journey the most, rather than the ending itself. Now, I know the ending it's very important, but damn he does bring us really good journies
I think this is a part of the tower cause spoilers in the conversation between the outsider and Ralph someone mentions ka which If you remember it's a big thing in the tower universe just a little connect I found so if that means that that's connected to the tower then that explains Brady heartsfields powers in end of watch cause that's connected to the tower the tower is connected to the castle rock storys which one of them is the dead zone and remember Johnny Smith got injured and that's how he got his powers so you see what I'm getting at for a in depth analysis I suggest you watch edward lorns the stephen king theorist episodes cause he goes more in depth but that's what I think I think E lorn has said my points before so I might be rehashing his points but to me it does make sense anyways anyways good review as always frosty
I agree with you. This book wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the best. And the ending...sheesh.
I just watched your intro video. Pretty cool. lol. Please check out my novels, THE RELIGION and BLACK MOUNTAIN. Would love to hear your opinion.
You’re the man frosty!
There was a boring part for about 200 pages when they're sitting around discussing things, and then the ending ... yeah. I had to literally go back and reread the page b/c I missed it. lol
The Coke analogy was so funny!!!
Cant wait to see the HBO miniseries adaptation
The cast looks pretty amaze-balls
I guess you heard that Squad D by Stephen King has been published in Shivers VIII.
I got about halfway through this book and I just couldn''t continue. I found it very very slow and after my mum had read it she told me the ending and ofcourse it was exactly as I predicted. I am a King fan, and I'm currently half way through Blaze and loving it. This book (which on paper i should have loved since its crime genre and King) just did not do it for me.
Totally agree about the desperation feel the caves the cave in being part of the past and I even kept expecting tak to pop out at any time even listing to the audiobook I’d hear tat and think I heard tak and get excited for nothin .
The audiobook is narrated by will patton 🤗
Reading Gerald's Game right now thinking about reading this next you deserve more subs 😊
I wanna read that book from my library! It sounds great!
I'm a huge fan, my audio book collection is 80% SK. But yeah, most of his stuff ends pretty flat...Bag of Bones ending was good.... enjoying Outsider so far, am trying really hard to not watch a spoiler.
Very good review my man!
The book starts off good but now I'm on page 406 and I'm beginning to hate it. I've read a lot of King books, almost all of his novels and I wanted to ask you do you think Stephen King actually wrote this book? I have to tell you reading this the writing style, structure and language is not the Stephen King that I recall. Maybe his wife is writing his books now or someone else but I'm 95% certain that SK didn't write this. It's not his voice. I've also felt this way about a few other ones that he recently put out.
I completely agree more then half the book was really good but man the ending fell so flat for me. Still a good read.
I feel like King's writing has suffered since he won that prestigious literary award. It's as if he's now trying too hard to write literature instead of just telling a great story.
I love that cover
favorite stephen king book?
I was not a fan of the ending. But it was a good july read.
I heard the audiobook and I agree that the book isn't the greatest, but it is still rather good. I have to agree on the ending though, he did the same with the running man, a very flat ending.
is that a library copy?
Helpful review and all, but literally face palmed during that bizarre album analogy. "Hit" songs are usually chosen for how well they reflect the tone and theme of the album. I know a lot of times those songs inspired the album, but that absolutely does not mean the other songs will be less dynamic. Kind of like how King once described Dreamcatcher as being written just so that he could write that disturbing bathroom scene. Lol, I'm sure he was exaggerating, but that's a pretty damn good confession on the nature of art and inspiration for you.
Bust out a spoiler review now
We have been waiting
Just casually spoils the ending of Cujo.
I must say that for me the original Scribner cover was one of the best things about this book. I read/listened through the whole Hodges trilogy, would give it a solid 3 Stars in total.
This quasi standalone however, only had a few exciting moments for me. I couldn't finish it, just had to stop at about 3/4 through. It had intreresting characters and dialogue, interesting general story, but it was dragged out way too long for my taste, and I simply got very bored with it, and decided to not waste another minute. One of a few of his that I couldn't bring myself to finish.
The weakest point of it is the desperate need of King to litter his work with political commentary. It isn't excessively done here, but it's there. It greatly takes away from a timeless universal appeal and I think it abuses this fictional work as a means to make a political statement, if only even slightly. As this book deals with abuse itself, it is soemwhat ironic, and a weak thing to do.
This book was pretty disappointing and it kind of felt as though he didn’t write it. I’ve read SK for 36 years and I know his voice very well and though parts of TO were interesting and unique, it fell flat. And the ending was awful. Well, then Elevation came along and it made TO seem like a Pulitzer. I hated that book. This year we now have The Institute. And it is SK at his best. Honestly, it made me so damn happy. And the ending was satisfying and perfect.
this book is a good read.
I have to agree the story overall is great 👍
Great pace,great characters and a cant put down sort of feel to it
But the ending really is classic stephen king lol 10 pages 😂
A really good read, but I did find it kind of jarring mixing the two genre's. I just have a hard time believing that no nonsense detective ralph Anderson could be talked into going on a quest to find a mythical being.
I thought tons of things happened. I got locked in to the detective narrative start to finish and the supernatural stuff (even though I’m not super big on that kind of thing) was pretty good, though not fantastic.very good book, 4/5. The main problem with supernatural forces is that usually the supernatural force is evil with few or no boundaries or definition, so there are too many outs for the evil and for the good people. If the evil is really that powerful, why not just kill everybody while they sleep early on. And the hand of god comes down at the end of the Stand... well that was easy, where was god early in the story. The main thing about the supernatural is that it doesn’t fucking exist. And people in real life who believe in it, they use the same fuzzy terminology so that reality can’t impinge on their make believe Santa Claus world. And when most horror or sci fi uses supernatural it better be done well.
good.
I like the cover
Sick hat btw
LOL you descr4ibing why the person who did cover should be fired definitely gets a sub from me LOL
Review The Shining
have you read Doctor Sleep?
DOCTORWHO ISGR8 Yup..not too bad
Great review!!🤙🏽 I would agree that the super natural being within The Outsider is in no way shape or form like Pennywise! However, Great video 👍🏽 if you are reading this go check out my Stephen King collection on my channel I have every single novel and short story collection he has published up to date! With a few golden nuggets that you as a fellow constant reader are bound to enjoy!! 🤟🏽
Stephen King’s Can of Worms
medium.com/@JacquesCoulardeau/stephen-kings-can-of-worms-2ffa97a99d5b
STEPHEN KING - THE OUTSIDER - 2018
This is the fourth volume of a trilogy that we all know, the trilogy of Bill Hodges, the private investigator. Bill Hodges is now dead (pancreatic cancer) and it is his associate Holly Gibney who assumes this new episode, though she only gets into the picture in the second half of the novel. The tone then is rather relaxed and it is essentially a murder case, an odious murder case. . .
If you really want to know more about him and his work you can always get to my own book, Stephen King, The Maverick Rapscallion, Kindle edition B07DMYT1VG, and you will be able to delve, dive and even sink in this horror literature that is the conscience of our modern times. . .
More book reviews
I think mentioning that there is a supernatural element to this book, was a bit of a spoiler.
Please do Needful Things
Average novel that started well but dovetailed fast.
Terrible creature + pathetic ending.
4/10
I thought it was a real page turner up to the point where Terry got shot than it goes down hill.
Zak_ Salter Thanks jackass for the spoiler...
I disagree, and congrats for spoiling it for others who are looking to read this...
E Schur well your a jackass too
Well, in the bottom line you're making yourself look like the biggest jackass here so far.
That's exactly how I felt! It's such a stark down turn. The story was super intriguing until King holds our hand and says "it's el cuco"
Lame :-/
Miss your shelves filled to the brim with hardback books of all shapes and sizes.
"IT" was a boring (audio) book this "The Outsider" .And yes that cover is more than crap .
That supernatural being ,was stolen it's called " SINT " the Dutch version watch this : ruclips.net/video/lYCBKgzuNak/видео.html
love your content but have to 100% disagree with your opinion on this book i thought it was excellent cheers .
Man… it started off interesting but ultimately became kind of boring. Definitely not scary. Definitely not close to IT.
Your logic is dumb not everyone can read every book they want to they usually come to reviews to find if they may like it no matter how long a book has been out don't mean tons of people read it look at war and peace been out forever don't mean everyone read it just cause it's been out for decades
you are indoors, get yer bloody hat off
spoiler alert since it is old. they should have retreated and shot the gun they aluded to
sAM bUTTERFIELD They probably would have died before they had the chance to shoot...
Ok...right away with the insults and death wishes for a cover designers... bye.
I think this book was doomed because of...THE COVER 🤣🤣🤣
Why do people think the cover looks bad? I think it looks awesome..?
Cool cover.... Felt cheated by this book...
This book was utter trash. King went limp on this one for sure.
She not he. It is a female.
I hope Holly Gibney never shows up again.