I haven't read it yet, but I read the first chapter (possibly less?) online and was really underwhelmed.

It really does start slowly. Amazon's sample was something like 11 chapters, and I was going to just stop reading after the first one, but I was killing time after a meeting, so I kept reading, and then it got me.

A friend said that it picks up once Evie is introduced

It definitely really does. I think Bray is taking too long to introduce some elements and integrate them (I hit one of those "Oh, I see how this is coming together!" moments, and realized it was goddamn page 262.)

That said, I'm REALLY enjoying it. It's one of those books where I can't wait to get home from work to read more.

I went on the same binge in college, Steph! For some reason, as and English and theatre major, with all the reading, the only thing I could read for "fun" was Stephan King.

Good to know. I'll probably put it on my Christmas list. I have all of her books but Beauty Queens in hardcover, so it would be crazy and obsessive nice to continue the trend.

Good to know. I'll probably put it on my Christmas list.

It's creepy as shit, which makes it timely to be reading now.

They're both good, and they *are* different, but they're also the same at the base. I loved seeing that, how you can take one story and tell it a completely different way.

I've been wanting to read those books for years because the idea behind them sounded so interesting. I wanted to see how they worked together, how they were connected.

Right now I'm beginning my John Green audiobook binge. Just started Looking for Alaska.

Right now I'm beginning my John Green audiobook binge.

I just discovered the other day that he went to my alma mater, Kenyon.

XKCD on 50 Shades of Gray: [link]

Too awesome.

P-C, there are probably better short stories, but my first love is still strong for Night Shift. There's a little sequel to Salem's Lot in there.

Insomnia is not only a fine novel, but it's a fine example of King showering love and affection on another writer -- Stephen Dobyns's Cemetery Nights, one of the most splendid poetry books of the last few decades, plays a minor but important role. King annoyingly didn't use any of my personal favorites, but the ones he did use were pretty spot-on for the story he was telling, and it was just so fun to stumble on one writer I love in the middle of another writer I love.

One not-King book I want to reread is Peter Straub's Floating Dragon. I remember it scaring the shit out of me

Oh, hell yes. There are images and moments from that book that still stick vividly in my mind after my single reading nearly 30 years ago.

Another fun (and scary and gruesome) read is The Talisman, which Straub and King co-wrote. It's a wonderful quest/pursuit/road-trip novel about a teenaged boy who is trying to save his mother's life.