Misery
Stephen King, 1987
★ 4.22 from 871.6k ratings on Goodreads
A novelist wakes from a crash in a stranger's house, nursed by his number-one fan — who has read his new book and wants him to take it back. A tight, uneasy read with a satirical edge, its dread building slowly as curiosity turns into claustrophobic suspense.
Feels like dread, curiosity and unease. About society, freedom and power.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy psychological horror that traps you inside a character's fear and lets a villain take over the page. Be warned that the opening is slow for some readers, and the violence is gruesome and more disturbing than scary.
Why read it
It gives you a tense, darkly funny look at obsession and dependency, with a villain whose attention is as frightening as her care.
A page from the book
How much of tonight's pain is being made, sentence by sentence, in your head.
The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of non acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. What readers say
Readers often describe this as a gruesome, unsettling psychological horror story that becomes intensely suspenseful and hard to put down, especially once the villain dominates. Some found the opening slow or the book more disturbing than scary, so reactions aren't unanimous.
Stephen King.King has said Misery began as an allegory of his own addiction: Annie Wilkes, who keeps him captive and doles out his pills, is the drug he couldn't put down.
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Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Misery for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy psychological horror that traps you inside a character's fear and lets a villain take over the page. Be warned that the opening is slow for some readers, and the violence is gruesome and more disturbing than scary.
- What is Misery like?
- A tight, uneasy read with a satirical edge, its dread building slowly as curiosity turns into claustrophobic suspense. Feels like dread, curiosity and unease. About society, freedom and power.
- What should I read after Misery?
- If you liked Misery, try The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty), Dracula (Bram Stoker) and Verity (Colleen Hoover).
A taste of the feed
Some people are cold in a way no weather can fix.
The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat from the old man’s brow, yet he cupped his hands around the glass of hot sweet tea as if to warm them.
The Exorcist · William Peter Blatty
Some people keep a darker world on hand so the real one stays bearable.
I needed for the imaginary version of my world to be darker than my real world. Otherwise, I would have wanted to leave them both.
Verity · Colleen Hoover
What makes a place a home is who you come back to.
Graham returned to the table. He was afraid that this was how he would remember the end of Sugarloaf Key-ice melting in two tea glasses and paper napkins fluttering off the redwood table in the breeze and Molly and Willy far down the beach.
Red Dragon · Thomas Harris
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