I watched the movie when it was first released and I was surprised and a bit horrified by the story. The movie was a well done, but I decided I couldn’t read the story and I stuck with that choice for 31 years. Over the last decade, I have become an avid reader of Stephen King, so I wanted to read all of his best stories, and the reviews told me that Misery was one of the books to tackle, so I finally decided to listen to it as an audiobook.

Misery is the right title. It describes the experiences of Paul Sheldon. It refers to the series Paul has written. It also refers to how the book made me feel. There were days where I just couldn’t listen to the story. Other days I had to talk myself into continuing on. Misery is a horror story without anything supernatural or diabolical. The two main characters are well-developed and the plot is believable. The author is invested in the thematic material – popular vs serious fiction, the writing process, the audience’s expectations vs the writer’s intents, and how art and life cross over and reflect each other. But “misery” is still the right word for everything that must be said about the book.

“The work, the pride in your work, the worth of the work itself…all those things faded away to the magic-lantern shades they really were when the pain got bad enough.”

My Rating – 4.5 out of 5.0 stars4.5