Revival by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't know what I thought I would expect when I read this, but I did not expect to be chortling with glee by the end of it.

And I chortled.

Under any normal circumstances, I might yell out, "Hey, folks! This is an expertly-written homage to Lovecraft, Tesla, Rock & Roll, wrapped in several hardcore coming-of-age stories within stories." But that doesn't do it justice. It's about faith and the loss of faith, about cures and their costs, and about a rather awesome con job.

But who is conning who? This question transforms all the elements in this novel from a clever twist into something quite deeper than I first thought.

Sure, there's a Victor Frankenstein element, too. But what really snagged me were the dreams. The hallucinations. The place where even death may die. :)

No spoilers, but if anyone hasn't already read King and wanted to start with something, they really can't go wrong with this. It has all his old style but... there's something BETTER in it. :) It just has something. Maybe genuinely likable characters, maybe a tighter control on his craft. Something. Something great.

And it freaked me out by the end. Freaked me out good. I call that a win. :)

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