Later by Stephen King

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” 3.5/5 ⭐️

Stephen King is a master of simple syntax, “use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful”. ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. This book is a hard example. Nothing is complicated. Nothing is flowery. Just a good ghost story, smashed together with teen angst, and a dirty cop drama.

We follow Jamie Conklin, a boy with the ability to see dead people, who wants nothing more than a normal childhood. Originally born into wealth on Park Ave. in NYC, but when his mother loses it all, experiences much less than a view of Central Park out of a penthouse window. He is the story teller, the story is written in his point of view years later in college. His mother starts seeing a woman, a NYPD detective and even at an early age, he can tell their drinking is abnormal, and questions the status of their relationship (which plays a major factor as the story progresses).

Jamie’s ability is used throughout the story to get other characters out of precarious situations. Using this ability does not come without consequence. This is when the ghost story truly begins.

If you are a Stephen King fan, this book is not The Shining, with in depth character introspections over hundreds of pages, developing long sewed roots to characters stories, but it absolutely gets the point across in a hard case crime concise fashion. You still feel glued to the main characters and wonder where is the story going? What is the next twist in this ghoulish tale?

If being completely honest, being written in the POV of Jamie years later, takes some of the suspense from the book. You always know he is safe. You always know he makes it out alive. Even while being terrorized by a ghost, you never fear for him too much, because after-all, he is writing the story years later.

-Flip