Annie are you okay?
 Oct 6th, 2003
Advantages:
Brilliant characters who excite powerful emotions within the reader
Disadvantages:
It drags on a little at times, reading type - written sections is annoying after awhile
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Would you read it again?
Story
Characters
Readability
How does it compare to other works by the same author?
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  tom1clare
About me:
Back on here after a bit of break. I've still been writing lots though - I've done quite a few revie...
Member since:19.06.2003
Reviews:218
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Review rated by 46 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
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Read Comment
For 1987's Misery, Stephen King took the basic horror-fiction formula that he had been tuning for just over a decade, and mixed it up a little. The result is a story that takes place mostly in one bare room, with two main characters contrasting in the roles of good and evil. Paul Sheldon is a succesful author, made famous by his romantic novels that star Misery Chastain. Popular as the series may be, Paul has become increasingly unhappy with the trashy style and character, and so decides to kill off the aptly-named Misery in her final book.
Finally free of Misery and able to concentrate on more satisfying, serious works of fiction, Paul is rather pleased with himself, and decides to embark on a drunken drive. Spontaneously, he decides to head North towards Colarado. Things go wrong though; a mixture of excessive alcohol intake and snow on the road cause him to crash heavily. Paul awakens sometime later in a bed. His legs are badly mangled, but things appear to be looking up: he is still alive after all and is being looked after by ex-nurse and 'number 1 fan', Annie Wilkes. Initially,
Annie shows herself to be a kind, sweetly-manned woman dedicated to getting Paul on the road to recovery. She talks eagerly about his latest Misery novel, and regularly gives him pain killing drugs.
The bad news for Paul is that he has already made his biggest mistake. Annie is no ordinary 'number one fan' - she is absolutely obsessed with Misery Chastain, and is none to happy when she discovers that Paul has murdered her idol... Paul becomes more of a prisoner than patient. Trapped in the plain bedroom thanks to his mashed legs, he is forced to resurrect Misery for one last outing - 'Misery Returns'; to be written exclusively for Annie. It soon becomes apparent that it's the only thing keeping him alive.
For a 370 page horror novel to take place almost entirely in one sparse, featureless room and still prove totally enthralling requires something rather special, and in Misery's case, it's the characters. Annie steals the show without a doubt; a supremely nasty creation, she can range from the angellic to the sadistic in the blink of an eye. The sound of Annie stomping towards Paul's room strikes genuine fear into the readers heart, as it is always difficult to gauge her violent mood swings. And when she's bad, she's very, very bad! Annie can be truly brutal to Paul at times - causing him great physical pain with a variety of instruments, keeping back his drugs, and treating him with the respect of a naughty dog (drinking soapy water out of a bucket for instance). Her attitude is really strange too, as she doesn't appear to take any pleasure out of doing these things - she feels they are more part of her duty. King has succeeded in creating one the most dislikable characters I have ever come across - you really, really want her to die horribly by the end!
Paul, whom which the story is narrated by in the first-person, is very much the victim who you quickly find yourself routing for. He tries a number of painful escape attempts when he is given a wheelchair, and some nail-biting moments where he frantically attempts to return to his bed before Annie appears. The stricken author has plenty of time to plan his final novel, to be knocked up on an old typewriter with a missing 'N' key, and in a stroke of genious, actual extracts of the story make up parts of Misery (although it's a pain to read with all the handwritten N's!). A story within a story - I thought this was a really clever touch, although it bares little importance to the outing come of Misery.
Interestingly, Stephen King has claimed he dreamt the characters up one day and he feels that each is a different side of himself. Which, judging by Annie's state of mind, is rather worrying! Inevitably, like with most Stephen King novels, things drag on a little bit from time to time and there are a lot of Paul's thoughts and emotions to wade through. Misery is certainly scary at times, but more memorable for it's rather graphic violence. Most importantly though, it manages to create far more powerful emotions within the reader than any other book I can remember.
It's grim stuff and certainly isn't for kids. Nor is it for the faint of heart; I'll warn you now, it gets pretty distasteful at times and though it leans more towards the psychological side of horror, that hasn't stopped Stephen King having some fun with poor old Paul! Overall, Misery is one of King's more impressive works of fiction. Obviously, if you like your stories with a bit of pace to them and can't stand Stephen King, then you should look elsewhere. If, however, you enjoy this kind of read, then it won't take you long to become completely engrossed, it's a real-page turner and thoroughly well conceived.
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23.09.2008 20:59
Agree completely that some parts of the book got pretty dull and one felt like flicking to the pages involving Annie. I don't agree with rooting for Paul though! He was a smug dick. Yea Annie was crazy and did some f**ked up things but she had bipolar depression and needed medical help. In her mind she was doing what was right in a biblical sense, whereas Paul thought more selfishly. She did save his life so what's a foot and a thumb?
19.09.2004 17:20
Great review, I've not read this but I've seen the film. I would love to get my hands on this!
28.07.2004 10:20
Very good review. I read this one some time ago and have never re-read it, it just scared me so much. Ellie.