Wizard and Glass

Wizard and Glass

 

Stephen King

 

 

(3.5)

 

This was a solid four star book for me until the ending. I've noticed that a lot of people thought this maybe the worst of the series, but I really enjoyed it.

 



I can see why people wouldn't like this one... after all, we're on a quest and the entire (giant) story is not a continuation of the quest, but a giant flashback. I personally liked hearing more of Roland's backstory, since his past is so interesting. I also think it's very important that we learned about exactly why Roland is so obsessed with finding the tower, otherwise we're left in the dark. In order to understand why the ka-tet needs to go to the tower, Roland has to tell them the story of his past right after he defeated Cort and became a gunslinger.

 

The characters were great. I loved reading about the coffin hunters, the witch, Cordelia, and Susan (especially Susan). I was not expecting a good romance out of King but he delivered. I wasn't overly sad at the conclusion because we kind of already know how it ends up, but I could feel Roland's grief. My problem was that it was so long. Unnecessarily long. We didn't need to know about every little thing Roland did while he was in Mejis, we could have gotten the gist of it in about 300 pages less.

 

Regardless of the size, I was really into the plot. Once the flashback ends, it gets pretty weird. There's a Wizard of Oz tie-in that seems pointless and really out of place. My sister tells me the next book goes off on a tangent as well, so I'm nervous. Overall, I've just felt like this is an okay series so I'm hoping I'll be wowed by the end.