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A review of Needful Things

by Stephen King

One of Stephen King's classic horror novels based in the well-known town of Castle Rock, which invites an evil presence that shatters the town.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Andrew
About Jennifer Andrew

Needful Things Beware of small little antique stores that appear in your town run by a man that makes you nervous. In a small town of Castle Rock where lots of weird things happen and where a number of stories are told, a tall, mysterious man sets up his shop called Needful Things and invites the locals to enter. His name is Leland Gaunt. He appears as a gentleman but under his taunt and dried skin he is made of pure evil. His customers really have nothing to buy from him but he is able to manipulate them into buying his products, which are tainted with evil. He satisfies his customers desires and wants but at a painful and horrific price.

This guy is a total freak! You would call him a demon in disguise. The reader can see that he is just using these poor innocent people and all you want to do is stand there and shake them until they wake up! As you read the book, your head shakes from side to side feeling pity for these suckers and thankful that you are not able to fall victim to Leland Gaunt's irresistible glare and hypnotic speech. His small little antique shop is situated in a part of town in just a way so that everyone notices it. You can't help but peek into the tinted windows to see what is offered on the other side. Of course, you can't see through the windows clearly enough so you have to venture in to see the what the store clerk is selling.

He shakes the town, plays the characters like puppets in a play and wraps their lives up like a spider's web. He has one character buying a piece of jewelry that helps her arthritis but little does she know what it is really made of. He tries to get a little boy to sell his soul for his favorite baseball card and he has other members of the town doing and thinking ridiculous things! In a situation like this, there seems to be one character that feels as if something is kind of screwy and not quite right. But that very same character is the one that gets to the scene just in time to see everything happening before their eyes but is so shocked by the events that the character stands motionless and helpless. Perhaps the situation continues to delude them in some way which gets you, the reader, so riled up that you are practically yelling at the character to wake up and smell the coffee!

This is a typical crazy, weird, mysterious, horrific Stephen King classic. I haven't read such a display of benevolent mischief in all my days. You don't know how the story is going to end, even though you thought you figured it out. This book makes you react like all his other books make you react. You appreciate the fact that you are not a character in his story but a spectator. He is able to draw you into his freakish world and wonder where he gets his creations.

Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: Needful Things

Copyright © by Jennifer Andrew, 2002

Reviewed by Jennifer Andrew:
-- The Talisman - by Stephen King, Peter Straub
-- Dance Upon the Air - by Nora Roberts
-- Heaven and Earth - by Nora Roberts
-- Face the Fire - by Nora Roberts
-- Hollywood Wives - by Jackie Collins
-- Mars and Venus on a Date - by John Gray, Ph. D.
-- Timeline - by Michael Crichton
-- Needful Things - by Stephen King
-- Wizard's First Rule - by Terry Goodkind
-- Dragondoom - by Dennis L. McKiernan
-- Running with the Demon - by Terry Brooks
-- A Knight of the Word - by Terry Brooks
-- Angel Fire East - by Terry Brooks
-- Hollywood Wives: The New Generation - by Jackie Collins
-- The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara - by Terry Brooks
-- The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara - Antrax - by Terry Brooks
-- Degree of Guilt - by Richard North Patterson
-- The Halls of Justice - by Lee Gruenfeld
-- Pantry Raid - Out of the Cupboard Cooking - by Dana McCauley
-- Low-Carb Meals in Minutes - by Linda Gassenheimer









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