Review: Full Dark, No Stars By Stephen King

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

**** (4 stars)

Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of 4-5 short stories depending on what edition you have. In each story King explores how people would react when faced with some difficult situations. Short stories tend to be hit or miss for me because it’s hard for me to feel like I have the full story when I am reading short stories. Most of the time when I read short stories I feel like I am left needing/wanting more and not in a good way. For the most part each of these stories gave me just enough to feel like I didn’t need/want more. I have written my thoughts on each story below and given them an individual rating. You will see my overall rating for the whole book above. All I did was take the average between my ratings below. Anyways here are my thoughts on each of the short stories in this book.

1922 – This was a great opener and it pulled me in immediately. Normally I say that King is overly detailed in his stories but for this story it worked for me. All of the details were gross and kind of gave me the creeps and had me cringing because I could just picture it in my head ugh!! I do have to point out that I am over how King always uses racism and sexism in his books. There was one particular line in this book that me and the group I read this book with felt was just added so he could mark off his racism included box. It wasn’t needed at all. We already knew this guy was a vile person from the very beginning. Despite that I was fully sucked into this story and absolutely loved everything else about it. 5 stars

Big Driver – This story is about a woman getting raped and it is pretty detailed so I would say if you’re easily triggered you might want to skip this one. Again I was sucked in immediately with this story. It was definitely hard to read the rape scene but I for the most part loved how she handled the aftermath. Do I agree with her actions no because I firmly believe 2 wrongs don’t make a right but it sure did make for a good story. 4 stars

Fair Extension – This story was my least favorite out of all of them but this is more because of a personal reason. I watched my dad lose his battle with cancer and my granny has fought it twice now and my mother in law is currently fighting it as well so when it’s made light of in a story I’m not impressed. I get that it’s just a story and it was an ok story overall but I couldn’t get over that fact.  3

A Good Marriage – The only complaint I had about this one had to do with the narrator of the audiobook and not the actual book itself. The narrator made the wife come off really whiny which really got on my nerves. I loved how this story played out and how in the end the wife got her revenge. 4.5

Under the Weather –  This is one where I needed more. I was so into the story and then all of a sudden it ended. I was so into the story that I didn’t see that twist coming and honestly I should have because it was pretty obvious. 4

Overall I definitely think this collection is worth reading if you can handle reading stories about things that can realistically happen. Every story except for one deals with real life scenarios and how people would react if put in those situations. They aren’t easy reads but I would say give it a go if you think you can handle it.