The Outsider

SIGH … many people are going to love this book. credibly most of them will love it for all ( or at least some ) of the reasons that I did not. And that ‘s OK. If you want to read reviews praising this book there are already many of them out there you may enjoy.

Mine will not be one of them. This is apparently, going to be Episode # 4 of my inspection series that is lento but surely becoming “ possibly Stephen King Should Have Retired at 65. ” decidedly with spoilers and bane words and ranty bits. Reader

Mine will not be one of them. This is apparently, going to be Episode #4 of my review series that is slowly but surely becoming “Maybe Stephen King Should Have Retired at 65.” Definitely with spoilers and curse words and ranty bits. Reader beware.

Stephen King has always had peaks and valleys in his career. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. For instance, Cujo is one that doesn’t really work for me, because the stream of consciousness style doesn’t fit the narrative or story. But the STORY is still compelling and interesting, if you can look past the writing of it. But to me, the last 6-7 years’ worth of King’s output has ranged from “good with some lame aspects” to “Yawn with a side of OH OKAY!” to “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GARBAGE AND WHY DID EVEN A SINGLE DAMN TREE HAVE TO DIE FOR IT??”

His last really good book was 11/22/63, written in 2011. Since then, all of his stories AND the way they are written feel the same. Stagnant. Boring. Recycled and reused. The characters aren’t interesting, and ever-increasingly, they all seem to be the same person. They all talk the same. They all act the same. The villains are the same. And they are boring. The writing style, something that King used to experiment with, has become so predictable that I literally wait for the events that I know will come.

For instance… In this book, there are lots of witness interviews pertaining to the crime. We have a range of people, from a 9 year old girl (and her mom), to a mid-30s (I’m guessing) Ex-con, ex-addict (are you ever really an ex at that though?) bouncer- excuse me, “Security Specialist” or whatever, to a elderly man, and an elderly woman, to a Native American woman cab driver. And every single one of them sound exactly the same. Not just the content, but the WAY OF SPEAKING. The way of being so attentively helpful as to come across as almost cringeingly servile. “Am I doing it right? I’m not in trouble, am I?” Like a bunch of dogs expecting their master to kick them, and doing everything they can to BE A GOOD DOG.

ALL of them. Even the kid. Exactly the same.

Or, another for instance… Inevitably, there will be introductions between characters, and regardless of how many times these people interact, it ALWAYS starts out formally, and then one of them will instruct the other to “Call me Bill” or whatever their name is, repeat 3 or 4 times over a few chapters, and then FINALLY we can move on once everyone is on the same page about Bill being Bill.

At least until we shift perspectives to another character… then we have to go through that ALL OVER AGAIN. New Character Is New, and doesn’t know Bill. So of course they will address him formally as Mr. LastName until Bill makes the appropriate bureaucratic request for New Character to adopt a casual acquaintance first name basis, signed, presented to the appropriate department in triplicate, and gotten the submission receipt as well as their parking validated. THEN New Character can address Bill as Bill.

Even in the most intense scenes… injured, and pinned down by a gunman, we have characters literally saying things like “And since we’re pinned down by a lunatic with a rifle, why don’t you just go ahead and call me [name]”. BECAUSE REALLY??? Is this REALLY the time to worry about what someone CALLS YOU?

BUT WAIT! Because the ENDLESS DISCUSSION about the nature of the big baddie, and the fact that he has multiple ‘identities’ (for lack of a better word)… whenever speaking of him, one must use ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL OF THE THINGS THAT ANYONE HAS EVER CALLED HIM… just so everyone, but the reader MOST OF ALL, is on the same page as to who is being referred to.

LEST WE BE CONFUSED.

20% of this book is probably spent on discussing what to call other characters. So. Fucking. Boring.

Speaking of the big baddie, and things being boring as fuck… This latest one was defeated with a few impotence jibes and a weighted sock. I wish I was joking.

When I started this review, I was fairly confident that I would be giving this book a decent 3 star rating. But the more I think about it, the more I don’t see that happening. It COULD have gone that way for me. I mean, there are some really interesting themes that COULD have been explored and built upon and fleshed out – like the nature of humans to disassociate themselves from people different from them, regardless of how long they’ve known the person, based on any accusation of being different. The tendency of fear, mainly the fear of POTENTIAL for harm or danger, to cause the ranks to close, the accused to be shunned, if not attacked or killed, simply on the basis of accusation and fear. The breakdown of rule of law could have been explored. Mob mentality. The easy corruption of friendly minds to fearful foe who feels entirely and completely justified in acting decisively in what they would call self defense, or frontier justice, or just plain vengeance… despite everything they know about the person otherwise.

It would have improved this story GREATLY in my opinion had any of these themes been explored in any real way. It’s mentioned, touched upon, and used as a convenient plot conveyor belt, But that’s all. A device to move the story from point A to point B.

In truth, this story feels hollow. King’s last 6-7 years worth of books have felt this way to me, in varying degrees. The ideas are there in these books, but the substance is not. Except Mr. Mercedes. That book was just absolute fucking shit from the first word and nobody will ever convince me otherwise.

As such, I just need to get this out of my system…

FUCK THIS BOOK not only for crossing over into the Mr. Mercedes (AKA ABSOLUTE SHIT) series, AND recapping it all for me, multiple times, AS THOUGH I WASN’T ALREADY PRETENDING IT DOESN’T EXIST BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT TO FUCKING READ IT AND DO NOT CARE ONE DAMN BIT ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS, but for ALSO USING THE WHOLE SECOND FUCKING HALF OF THE OUTSIDER TO REMIND ME OF WHY THE FUCK I HATED THAT BOOK SO DAMN MUCH.

From the fat shaming, to the casual sexism, to the regular backhanded “compliments” tossed Holly’s way (that she’s EVER SO GRATEFUL FOR, but also modestly embarrassed by) and so much more, I am reminded of all the things I hated in that book. Now, generously presented in this one.
YAY.

And lest you, review reader, if you’re still with me at this point of my ragerant, think that I’m just carrying a grudge against Mr. Mercedes… well, okay… you’d be right.

But, ALSO here. I’m not being unfair to The Outsider because I’m still feeling some kind of way about…that fucking shitty OTHER book, because we have ALL of the stereotypical King traits that now irk me so much when I see them in this one too!

Fat shaming of Bill Hodges! When Alec learns he’s dead, he automatically assumes it was due to his weight, which was a WHOPPING 30 pounds overweight. HA HA! IN YOUR FACE THOUGH, ALEC. It was cancer. Fuck you and your assumptions.

Fat shaming others! The poor murder victim’s mother was described as being 50 pounds overweight, with “fat arms” and “considerable stomach”, and literally died covered in lasagna. Remember those middle fingers from above? Just… carry one with you as we go along and apply as needed. This situation seems like a good time to do so.

I honestly wonder what Stephen King thinks of people in the 300 or 400lb + range. Because, from the way that he writes about weight, it’s like he expects for anyone who weighs more than 200 lbs to just drop dead immediately when the scale tips over from the 199 to the 200. Yes, Stephen. There are fat people, and it’s generally unhealthy… I GUARANTEE YOU WE KNOW IT. For fuck’s sake… STOP FUCKING WRITING CRUEL AND HUMILIATING SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE OVERWEIGHT INTO YOUR BOOKS, YOU ABSOLUTE DICK.

That said, let’s move on to the casual sexism! Should be fun. Remember Sleeping Beauties and how totally WOKE Stephen King was? Yeah. Me either. (And yeah, I went to Bad Punville. Sue me.)
This book contains all of the old stand-bys.

Women as domestic fairies – complete with all of the caretaking that you’d expect. OH, you’re having people over. No sense ORDERING FOOD, I’ll MAKE something. That’s what the wimmin is good for. Sammitches.

Sure, we see a man cook, but he does it badly. Always breaks the egg yolks. Tsk. You failure.
Sure, we see a man go to the grocery store… with a list from his wife. And “her” coupons, which the man is chided by another man about… Hope you didn’t forget them. The ol’ ball and chain will have your head if you forgot that 20 cent off coupon for Charmin. That’s her HOUSE MONEY. Don’t fuck with it.
We see women clutching their husbands when they are frightened. OH SAVE ME, YOU BIG HUNK OF MONSTER KILLER.
We see ONE token female police officer… conveniently pregnant to the point of bursting, so she never needs to actually be in the story at all.
We see man after man after man AMAZED at the mere competence of a woman. And we see that woman reject and downplay their grudging acknowledgement of her. Because everything she knows, she learned from a man – even how to live.

Fuck off with that noise.

This book… Ugh. Still not as bad as Absolute Shit… though not for lack of trying. The only thing it was missing was Mr. Jive Talkin’ Jerome. I don’t know if I would have made it through had he been in the book too, honestly. I might have set my fucking kindle on fire.

I really had hoped that this book was going to be a return to great characters, great storytelling, great STORY. But it wasn’t anywhere close to those things.

As a police procedural/thriller, it was lame. Never once did I feel concerned about what would happen or who it would happen to. The title gives it away that the main suspect is innocent, right from the start. I knew he would have to die… though I figured that it would be in a sort of “I’M THE REAL ME – SHOOT HIM!” situation. That would have been more exciting than what we got.

As a police procedural/thriller compared to Absolute Shit… It’s better. But marginally. I can’t think of anything that I liked, other than the potential of the story. And… considering that this is from a man I’ve been reading since I was a kid… that just doesn’t cut it for me.

Too bad. This really could have been something.

Edit to add this, which I commented on my friend

I took a shitton of rage notes on my kindle about [the technology in this book feeling like it was written by someone completely out of touch], but then forgot to include any of them in my review because it was like 2 am and I was too pissed off to even care. LOL

But seriously, in 2018, Holly uses MAPQUEST?? Seriously? No the fuck she doesn’t. She uses Google Maps like everyone else.

Also, Trivago (which is a meta aggregation site that searches all of the major online booking companies for you, finds the best deals, and then links you to where the deal is from so you can book it. This is literally my industry.) King would have us believe that Holly is savvy enough to use TRIVAGO for her search (rather than just using a search engine to find the restaurant and then what the hotels are around it)… but then just call the hotel directly to book.

So many issues with this. Trivago has a very basic search. You enter the city, and your dates. That’s it, then you can narrow down by amenities, star rating, neighborhood. She’d have a hard time finding the SPECIFIC hotel she wanted on their site.

But my main issue is that Holly has social anxiety, which means SHE WOULDN’T CALL ANYONE if she could avoid it. She’d book that shit online. AND… Why bother using a aggregation site like that if you’re just going to call the hotel directly. You no get good rate that way. You get good rate booking online deals.

Ugh… it was like this was written by a 70 year old or something. SIGH … many people are going to love this book. credibly most of them will love it for all ( or at least some ) of the reasons that I did not. And that ‘s OK. If you want to read reviews praising this book there are already many of them out there you may enjoy.Mine will not be one of them. This is apparently, going to be Episode # 4 of my review serial that is slowly but surely becoming “ possibly Stephen King Should Have Retired at 65. ” decidedly with spoilers and execration words and ranty bits. Reader beware.Stephen King has always had peaks and valleys in his career. You ca n’t please all of the people all of the time. For case, Cujo is one that does n’t actually work for me, because the pour of awareness style does n’t fit the narrative or fib. But the STORY is still compel and interest, if you can look past the writing of it. But to me, the last 6-7 years ‘ worth of King ‘s output has ranged from “ dependable with some feeble aspects ” to “ Yawn with a side of OH OKAY ! ” to “ WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GARBAGE AND WHY DID even A SINGLE DAMN TREE HAVE TO DIE FOR IT ? ? “ His last truly well book was 11/22/63, written in 2011. Since then, all of his stories AND the way they are written feel the like. Stagnant. Boring. Recycled and reused. The characters are n’t interest, and ever-increasingly, they all seem to be the lapp person. They all talk the same. They all act the lapp. The villains are the same. And they are boring. The write style, something that King used to experiment with, has become then predictable that I literally wait for the events that I know will come.For case … In this record, there are lots of witness interviews pertaining to the crime. We have a range of people, from a 9 year old girl ( and her ma ), to a mid-30s ( I ‘m guessing ) Ex-con, ex-addict ( are you always in truth an x at that though ? ) bouncer- excuse me, “ Security Specialist ” or whatever, to a aged man, and an aged woman, to a native american charwoman taxi driver. And every single one of them sound precisely the same. not good the content, but the WAY OF SPEAKING. The way of being then attentively helpful as to come across as about cringeingly servile. “ Am I doing it right ? I ‘m not in perturb, am I ? ” Like a bunch of dogs expecting their master to kick them, and doing everything they can to BE A GOOD DOG.ALL of them. evening the kid. precisely the same.Or, another for case … inescapably, there will be introductions between characters, and regardless of how many times these people interact, it ALWAYS starts out formally, and then one of them will instruct the other to “ Call me Bill ” or whatever their name is, repeat 3 or 4 times over a few chapters, and then FINALLY we can move on once everyone is on the same page about Bill being Bill.At least until we shift perspectives to another fictional character … then we have to go through that ALL OVER AGAIN. New Character Is New, and does n’t know Bill. So of course they will address him formally as Mr. LastName until Bill makes the appropriate bureaucratic request for New Character to adopt a free-and-easy acquaintance foremost name basis, signed, presented to the appropriate department in triplicate, and gotten the submission receipt a good as their park validated. THEN New Character can address Bill as Bill.Even in the most intense scenes … injured, and pinned down by a gunman, we have characters literally saying things like “ And since we ‘re pinned down by a daredevil with a rifle, why do n’t you fair go ahead and call me [ diagnose ] ”. BECAUSE REALLY ? ? ? Is this REALLY the fourth dimension to worry about what person CALLS YOU ? BUT WAIT ! Because the ENDLESS DISCUSSION about the nature of the large villain, and the fact that he has multiple ‘identities ‘ ( for miss of a better word ) … whenever talk of him, one must use ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL OF THE THINGS THAT ANYONE HAS EVER CALLED HIM … just so everyone, but the subscriber MOST OF ALL, is on the lapp page as to who is being referred to.LEST WE BE CONFUSED.20 % of this reserve is probably spent on discussing what to call other characters. thus. Fucking. Boring.Speaking of the bad villain, and things being boring as sleep together … This latest one was defeated with a few powerlessness jibes and a burden windsock. I wish I was joking.When I started this review, I was fairly convinced that I would be giving this book a becoming 3 star military rank. But the more I think about it, the more I do n’t see that happening. It COULD have gone that way for me. I mean, there are some in truth concern themes that COULD have been explored and built upon and fleshed out – like the nature of humans to disassociate themselves from people different from them, careless of how long they ‘ve known the person, based on any accusation of being unlike. The inclination of fear, chiefly the concern of POTENTIAL for damage or danger, to cause the ranks to close, the accused to be shunned, if not attacked or killed, just on the basis of accusation and fear. The breakdown of govern of jurisprudence could have been explored. Mob brain. The slowly corruption of friendly minds to cowardly enemy who feels wholly and wholly justified in acting decisively in what they would call self defense, or frontier judge, or just complain vengeance … despite everything they know about the person otherwise.It would have improved this story GREATLY in my opinion had any of these themes been explored in any real way. It ‘s mentioned, touched upon, and used as a convenient plat conveyer knock, But that ‘s all. A device to move the report from item A to point B.In truth, this fib feels hollow. King ‘s last 6-7 years worth of books have felt this manner to me, in varying degrees. The ideas are there in these books, but the meaning is not. Except Mr. Mercedes. That book was just absolute fucking denounce from the foremost bible and cipher will always convince me otherwise.As such, I good need to get this out of my arrangement … FUCK THIS BOOK not only for crossing over into the Mr. Mercedes ( AKA ABSOLUTE SHIT ) series, AND recapping it all for me, multiple times, AS THOUGH I WAS N’T ALREADY PRETENDING IT DOES N’T EXIST BECAUSE I DO not WANT TO FUCKING READ IT AND DO NOT CARE ONE DAMN BIT ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS, but for ALSO USING THE WHOLE SECOND FUCKING HALF OF THE OUTSIDER TO REMIND ME OF WHY THE FUCK I HATED THAT BOOK SO DAMN MUCH.From the fatty dishonor, to the casual sexism, to the even backhanded “ compliments ” tossed Holly ‘s way ( that she ‘s EVER SO GRATEFUL FOR, but besides modestly embarrassed by ) and so much more, I am reminded of all the things I hated in that book. now, liberally presented in this one.YAY.And fifty you, review proofreader, if you ‘re still with me at this period of my ragerant, think that I ‘m just carrying a grudge against Mr. Mercedes … well, okay … you ‘d be right.But, ALSO hera. I ‘m not being unfair to The Outsider because I ‘m still feeling some kind of way about … that fucking icky OTHER book, because we have ALL of the stereotyped King traits that now irk me so much when I see them in this one excessively ! Fat shame of Bill Hodges ! When Alec learns he ‘s absolutely, he mechanically assumes it was due to his weight, which was a whack 30 pounds fleshy. HA HA ! IN YOUR FACE THOUGH, ALEC. It was cancer. Fuck you and your assumptions.Fat shaming others ! The poor murder victim ‘s mother was described as being 50 pounds fleshy, with “ fat arms ” and “ considerable abdomen ”, and literally died covered in lasagna. Remember those middle fingers from above ? Just … carry one with you as we go along and apply as needed. This situation seems like a good time to do so.I honestly wonder what Stephen King thinks of people in the 300 or 400lb + rate. Because, from the way that he writes about weight, it ‘s like he expects for anyone who weighs more than 200 pound to good drop dead immediately when the scale tips over from the 199 to the 200. Yes, Stephen. There are fatten people, and it ‘s broadly unhealthy … I GUARANTEE YOU WE KNOW IT. For sleep together ‘s sake … STOP FUCKING WRITING CRUEL AND HUMILIATING SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE OVERWEIGHT INTO YOUR BOOKS, YOU ABSOLUTE DICK.That said, let ‘s move on to the casual sexism ! Should be fun. Remember Sleeping Beauties and how wholly WOKE Stephen King was ? Yeah. Me either. ( And yeah, I went to Bad Punville. Sue me. ) This book contains all of the old stand-bys.Women as domestic fairies – complete with all of the caretaking that you ‘d expect. OH, you ‘re having people over. No sense order FOOD, I ‘ll MAKE something. That ‘s what the wimmin is good for. Sammitches.Sure, we see a man fudge, but he does it badly. Always breaks the egg yolks. Tsk. You failure.Sure, we see a homo go to the grocery store shop … with a list from his wife. And “ her ” coupons, which the man is chided by another man about … Hope you did n’t forget them. The ol ‘ ball and chain will have your read/write head if you forgot that 20 cent off coupon for Charmin. That ‘s her HOUSE MONEY. Do n’t fuck with it.We see women clutching their husbands when they are frightened. OH SAVE ME, YOU BIG HUNK OF MONSTER KILLER.We see ONE nominal female patrol military officer … handily pregnant to the luff of abound, so she never needs to actually be in the narrative at all.We see man after world after man AMAZED at the mere competence of a charwoman. And we see that woman reject and downplay their grudge recognition of her. Because everything she knows, she learned from a man – evening how to live.Fuck off with that noise.This book … Ugh. silent not arsenic bad as Absolute Shit … though not for miss of trying. The entirely thing it was missing was Mr. Jive Talkin ‘ Jerome. I do n’t know if I would have made it through had he been in the book excessively, honestly. I might have set my fucking kindle on fire.I in truth had hoped that this script was going to be a refund to great characters, big storytelling, capital STORY. But it was n’t anywhere close to those things.As a patrol procedural/thriller, it was cripple. never once did I feel concerned about what would happen or who it would happen to. The championship gives it away that the chief fishy is innocent, right from the start. I knew he would have to die … though I figured that it would be in a kind of “ I ‘M THE REAL ME – SHOOT HIM ! ” site. That would have been more excite than what we got.As a police procedural/thriller compared to Absolute Shit … It ‘s better. But marginally. I ca n’t think of anything that I liked, other than the potential of the history. And … considering that this is from a man I ‘ve been reading since I was a kid … that just does n’t cut it for me.Too bad. This actually could have been something.Edit to add this, which I commented on my ally Kemper ‘s follow-up, and then decided, screw it, I ‘m tacking it on to mine. here we go : I took a shitton of fury notes on my kindle about [ the engineering in this koran feeling like it was written by person wholly out of allude ], but then forgot to include any of them in my review because it was like 2 am and I was excessively pissed off to even care. LOLBut badly, in 2018, Holly uses MAPQUEST ? ? badly ? No the fuck she does n’t. She uses Google Maps like everyone else.Also, Trivago ( which is a meta collection site that searches all of the major on-line booking companies for you, finds the best deals, and then links you to where the deal is from so you can reserve it. This is literally my industry. ) King would have us believe that Holly is grok enough to use TRIVAGO for her search ( rather than good using a search engine to find the restaurant and then what the hotels are around it ) … but then just call the hotel directly to book.So many issues with this. Trivago has a very basic research. You enter the city, and your dates. That ‘s it, then you can narrow down by amenities, star denounce, vicinity. She ‘d have a difficult clock time finding the SPECIFIC hotel she wanted on their site.But my main issue is that Holly has social anxiety, which means SHE WOULD N’T CALL ANYONE if she could avoid it. She ‘d book that shit on-line. AND … Why bother using a collection site like that if you ‘re just going to call the hotel directly. You no get dear rate that way. You get good pace booking on-line deals.Ugh … it was like this was written by a 70 year old or something.