stephen king c/d?

People really did bring up the particular vaccines they got like that.

Fair enough, it just wasn't my experience! Holly's reactions did sometimes feel realistic, given her hypochondria, it just wasn't fun when it was happening every single paragraph

He can keep the boomer references but then maybe have the protagonists actually be boomers or make the stories period pieces instead of having middle-aged characters with the frame of reference of a septuagenarian

There’s a funny review of the outsider that takes him to task for having the iirc mid-40s protagonist remember seeing on the news that John Lennon was shot; in the latest collection there’s a character younger than me who has never heard of apps or comments sections. It’s ridiculous. Stuff like this more than bloat/indulgence is what makes ppl conclude king became uneditable at some point I think. Holly is a great example, it’s obv fine to set fiction in the pandemic & objections to that are weird imo but king does it in the most hamfisted way imaginable. holly gibney is one of his worst characters (the depiction of neurodivergence is better than M-O-O-N but you can’t say much more) & I lost count of the number of times the narrative gives some variation on “holly has changed a lot since book one of this series”, it’s “character” “development” handled as clumsily as the covid stuff

Having said that I had a pretty good time with you like it darker! Some real bangers, a few duds (Finn is a lesser in the death room with a different ethnic caricature)

Haven't gotten the new one, randomly decided to re-read Nightmares and Dreamscapes. I remembered it as a weak collection compared to the first two, but I've actually enjoyed the stories so far. It is the point where King gets a little overly descriptive for his own good though - a lot of his 90s novels are absolutely huge, aren't they?

I remember back in the 90s a friend had an advertisement for the then-new Insomnia on her refrigerator. It said “INSOMNIA—-IT LOOMS.” Strangely hard to find an image online for it.

https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/31646747768.jpg

There’s this. But it’s not quite right.

He can keep the boomer references but then maybe have the protagonists actually be boomers or make the stories period pieces instead of having middle-aged characters with the frame of reference of a septuagenarian

Basically the last 20 years of The Simpsons in a nutshell

The novella length always seemed to be King’s sweet spot. His short stories are usually too silly, while the fuk novels (especially those that came after he left his original editor in 1986), are too self-indulgent and overlong

fuk novels, u say...

Fuk boi lit