Later
By Stephen King
Release Date: March 2, 2021
Audiobook Available from WV Reads!
2.5 Stars - Interesting ghost tale and semi-mystery that fell a little short of my expectations. Told from the point-of-view of a child in the early 2000s, this was less a hard-boiled crime and more a modern period piece. There's plenty of King trademarks and references for fans and a less violent, scary story for a casual reader.
The timeline of this story didn't work for me. I'm totally cool with film noir style, first person, past tense, deep setting the stage, but this hopped around too much. I'm relatively close in age to the main character, and I had so much trouble remembering and visualing what year and what age our young hero Jaime was for the first two hours at least. (It's less than 7 hours long). He's kind of an adorable protagonist though and very well-voiced by narrator Seth Numrich. The rest of the characters with the exception of a few old guys who appears are less likable.
No matter how many books I've read, a main character who "sees dead people" is always interesting. I find it fascinating how different writers set up the rules for ghosts and mediums to suit their own needs. And do it with such authority. Here, King uses his weird but fun sense of humor to say this is not like The Sixth Sense in real life. And then proceeds to set it up so much like Sixth Sense, down to traffic jams and dead bike riders. This plot really kind of writes itself. But I'm not sure that aspect was doing anyone any favors. King's style makes it entertaining of course. That said, we pretty much know how it's going to go. The dead people are grisly to add some fear factor. They use Jaime's gift to try to make money and solve crimes. It's possible I just wasn't in the right mood or I needed something more intense to hold my attention. But this was a really short book that felt painfully long to me. There was so much jumping around, recapping, and foreshadowing, I was kind of ready to skip to the end, get to some action, something. Then the last hour was just weird. A short, mindlessly entertaining thriller that's probably best as a beach read or an afternoon book binge.
(NS)
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