“The terror is relentless” (Publishers Weekly) in Stephen King’s #1 national bestseller about a little mining town, Desperation, that many will enter on their way to somewhere else. But getting out is not easy as it would seem… seams between worlds are thin. And it is a place where several travelers are abducted by Collie Entragian, the maniacal police officer of Desperation. Entragian uses various ploys for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to “rescuing” a family from a nonexistent gunman. There’s something very wrong here, all right, and Entragian is only the surface of it.
The secrets embedded in Desperation’s landscape, and the evil that infects the town like some viral hot zone, are both awesome and terrifying. But as one of the travelers, young David Carver, seems to know—though it scares him nearly to death to realize it—so are the forces summoned to combat them. “Stephen King’s knack for turning the stray junk of pop culture into sick, darkly engrossing thrills has rarely been this much in evidence as in Desperation” (Salon).
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Awesome!!! As are most Stephen King books
One of my favorites
Read
I read this and slept with the lights on, Stephen King scares me but he does know how to write a phenomenal story
Stone cold crazy.
Really twisted and a page turner. Ended on a very scary point. You can imagine what is going on and how things can really go to such scary lengths.
Desperation is a book that you’ll want to read with the doors locked and the blinds down.
My favorite author ever
Twisted and turns.
Steven King never disappoints!
Vintage Stephen King at his best!
A great read, it was fun to read a Stephen King book again.
Excellent King Novel!, OUTSTANDING, I loved this book, huge bonus to have King narrate! I definitely will look for more books narrated by King, what better way to listen to the story the way the author hears it in his head. Awesome!!! I highly recommend this book to all Stephen King fans!
I love everything Stephen King writes!!
I really enjoyed this story. I found it to be strangely addicting at times, and would have finished it a week early if I hadn’t been overwhelmingly busy with real life things. I did think the heavy God stuff was strange and sometimes overwhelming, but I still loved how everything came together.
**some-what spoilers**
I loved that the scary thing in this story wasn’t something science fictional and was something more omnipotent. I think that is why God was such a plot point in this story, because Tak was himself a type of God, or at least something equally stronger than man.
A classic, especially with its counterpart, The Regulators.
Couldn’t put it down.
As a giant fan of Stephen King who had read tons of his books by the time I got around to this one, the one expectation I had above all others was obvious: I was hoping it would be really scary—and I wasn’t disappointed! Desperation is a rip-roaring supernatural horror tale about travelers who find themselves battling a powerful supernatural evil after they are stranded in the small Nevada town of Desperation. As the youngest member of their group, David, tries to convince them, their strongest weapon in their desperate struggle for survival will be their faith in God. Why is this important? Because the incredibly powerful entity they are battling is a god, a malevolent force that has unintentionally been released from a mine where it had been inprisoned for a century or more. This book was a hit with fans AND critics when it was released in 1995. My favorite review from the paperback editions is not only fun to read, but in my opinion, it perfectly describes how frightening the book is: “A gory, gut-wrenching exercise in fear and paranoia. Desperation is a fast-paced, in your face, heart-pounding horrorthon that builds to an exciting conclusion!” Detroit Free-Press. To whichever journalist writing for the paper at that time happens to have also written this review, I agree with you wholeheartedly! What I felt tempted to say then is what I can still say now: “You’re not kidding, buddy! NOT AT ALL!!” For King fans who are looking for a truly moving story that is also the kind of chiller that any fright fans would truly enjoy, take a trip to Desperation. Just pray that you are also able to leave with your life!
Only Stephen King I did not care to finish. I am no prude, but this was gross just for shock value.
I love Stephen King but this book was terrible. No empathetic character development and no plot to grasp on to. Nothing redeemable that I can find to say. I feel like he just took all the words and half-baked ideas left over from somewhere else and threw them together.