MISERY by Stephen King - REVIEW
Eager to start 2025 in the right headspace I read my first book of the year: ‘Misery’ by Stephen King.
In the first ten pages; a best-selling author is grotesquely injured, kidnapped by his mentally unstable ‘number one fan’, and I start to think ‘there’s probably not many laughs in this one’.
Beginning with a horrific car crash, the story follows ‘Paul Sheldon’, who now has shattered legs, as he tries to cope with having shattered legs and the twist is - his legs are absolutely shattered.
His terrifying number one fan keeping him prisoner is ‘Annie Wilkes’ - who’s like Miss Trunchbull crossed with Katie Hopkins but without the headteacher’s redeeming qualities. The story is set in her eerie house, between isolated snowy mountains, and most terrifyingly of all, in America.
Annie is obsessed with Paul’s hugely successful historical romance series centered around the fictional character ‘Misery Chastain’. Here I take a slight issue, Stephen. I’m sorry, but ‘Misery Chastain’ is such a ridiculous name. You might as well have a protagonist with any stupid or horrific name like ‘Dump Shifter’, ‘Fairy Huckface’, or ‘Ed Balls’.
Anyway, while Paul is captive and drugged up to the nines on painkillers, his latest ‘Misery’ novel comes out in which he’s killed off the protagonist... This, there’s no other way to say it, pisses Annie right off. And like a poorly trained cat in a litter tray, she flips her shit.
She therefore enthusiastically demands the drug dependent and horribly injured Paul writes a new ‘Misery’ novel - bringing back the beloved protagonist. Annie does this through varying forms of physical, emotional and physical abuse. (I had a lovely Christmas by the way).
And so ‘Misery’ becomes about Paul Sheldon writing for his life while held prisoner by someone capable of more violent tantrums than Clarkson at a continental breakfast.
I won’t give away any spoilers for the rest of the story but as it’s called ‘Misery’ it’s unlikely to follow the narrative pattern of a Paddington book. (Unless there’s one I haven’t read where Paddington’s legs get absolutely battered).
It was as terrifying as it was violent. It, frankly, put me off my spag bol and I found myself so scared, I was reading between my fingers. But then again, I suppose that’s how all books are read.
All in all, a real page turner and a massive favourite, I’d imagine, for fans of stories about legs getting absolutely battered.