Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Trish's Read A Long of The Stand by Stephen King


I'm so in!! The lovely, amazing, beautiful Trish is hosting a readalong of The Stand by Stephen King and of course I have to join in! Why? I'll answer the questions to her meme to tell you why!

1. What makes you want to read The Stand? First and foremost, I want to read this book because it's my bestest friend Debi's FAVORITE BOOK!!!! And she's only been trying to get me to read it for five years now. Secondly, I actually started this book about two years ago, got 350 pages in and was loving it and for some reason never went back to it :/ So I'm super excited to actually read it this time!!

2. Describe your preconceived notions of The Stand? Well I'm a bit biased because I've read some of it but what I've read is AWESOME. I actually really like Stephen King and have loved pretty much every one of his books I've read. A lot of people call him a "guilty pleasure" author, but I just think he writes a damn good and entertaining novel!

3. What was the last scary(ish) book you read or movie you saw? Wow! Nothing this year! The last one was actually in October of last year and it was definitely nightmare inducing, but one of the best books I've read at the same time. Shadow Man by Cody McFadyen. I really need to catch up with that series. Horrifying in a "it could really happen and it's really fucking sick that it ever does happen" sort of way. Incidentally I also read this because of Debi :p

4. Which version of the book will you be reading from? I'll be reading the complete and uncut version on my Nook!

5. What are your previous experiences with Stephen King? As I said earlier, I really haven't read a book by him that I didn't like...except for Eye of the Dragon...not so good. My FIRST experience with him was one of my first novels actually. I read Misery in the sixth grade. I think I was 11 or 12 and believe it or not I got it from the Scholastic book order through school!! In a Catholic school nonetheless!! I was in love with that book. More recently I've read Lisey's Story and Cell and have loved them both. I particularly loved Lisey's Story...one of my favorite books I've read actually since I've been blogging. HAHA!! Ok...I just went back and read my Lisey's Story "review". It's just embarassing and not even a review. It's the first book I ever reviewed on this blog and I obviously did not consider myself a book blogger then...it was in 2007...I also found that I was talking about SparkPeople on that post!! I didn't even remember that site existed back then...I don't remember even hearing about it until recently from Amanda...funny how looking back on the past can be so jarring sometimes. One other fun piece of knowledge...when I was reading my review of Cell I saw that it was noted in my paperback of Cell that Stephen King didn't own a Cell phone at the time...I'd be curious to know if that's still true!

6. Anything else you'd like to add? Bonus points for being extra random. DAMN..I should've read this question before writing my response to the previous question....all those bonus points I missed out on....

Join in the fun!! It officially starts June 1st and goes for 9 weeks but I think I'll start tonight actually ;)

11 comments:

DesLily said...

have fun. I hope you do posts in between the "read along" parts..because when you don't read the book all those questions become boring. but I know with Matt moving down and new home and all that's going on I do expect some "home posts" lol..I hope matt gets a blog too!

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

I'm joining in too! I'm glad you've already read and enjoyed part of the book. I'm much newer to King, but I'm excited!

Debi said...

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Can you tell I'm happy you're doing this???

I think I told Trish that I'm tempted to read it again(!!!) but I'm too afraid that people will be trashing it and I can't bear to see people ripping apart the characters that I love sooooooooo much!!! Now I know you'll be out there reading, and I feel so relieved. :D And actually, now I really want to join in, too! :D

I totally cracked up reading #5, and then #6! I totally think you deserve those bonus points.

Annie and I were just talking two or three days ago about your experience with "that part" in The Eyes of the Dragon. :P Did I tell you she and I have a bet going--she's trying to read all of King's books this year. If she does it, I give her 50 bucks--if she doesn't, she gives me $5. I'm totally going to be 5 bucks richer come the end of the year. :P

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Ok, first a shout at DEBI. I don't think that people will be trashing the book. Honestly I haven't heard anything but GREAT things about this book. I might whine a bit about the length but really I'm SO excited. I know Chris and I would love if you joined. ;)

Now Chris. Yes, ding ding ding for those bonus points. I LOOOOOOOOOOURVE your enthusiasm and am thrilled that you're joining us. I think I'm going to start it soon as well! :)

Daphne said...

I LOVED The Eyes of the Dragon!! Admittedly, I read it in middle school... but still -- why didn't you like it? I adored The Stand -- it is a major novel and really really good. I also can't wait for more home posts. :)

Kailana said...

I hope you have lots of fun, Chris!

Bookfool said...

I loved peeking back at that "first book review" post! Happy reading!

chrisa511 said...

Deslily, Oh I'll be posting other stuff too!! Hoping to get back to blogging again now that things are a bit more settled...how many times have I said that :p And we'll see if I can talk Matt into a blog!

Melissa, YAY!!! Hope you like King!! He really is great :D

Debs, Oh I really don't think people will trash it!! After reading what I read, I really can't see people hating it. I absolutely loved what I read of it!! But I totally get your hesitancy...it's like if I saw people trashing Speaker for the Dead or American Gods. Did you ever read Speaker by the way? i dont remember :p OMG I hope Annie reads all of King's books!!!

Trish, I am so so so so glad that you decided to host this!! it's just what I need to finally get me to read this :D Now you need to host a War and Peace readalong after this so I can read the gorgeous copy I have :p And yay for getting Debi to join us!!

Daphne, I read it in Middle School too and there was this scene at the beginning where the king puked in a bowl and I remember the line..told the jester to "come nigh and drink the nice hot soup" Disturbed the fuck out of me! LOL...it truly scarred me..I couldn't read any more, lol.

Kells, Thanks :D Glad you're joining in too even though it is unofficial!

Nancy, glad you enjoyed that peek :p I totally owe you an email and plan on doing that soon!! Things have been so crazy but they seem to finally be settling down some :)

Leslie @ This is the Refrain said...

Debi, if you love it, I can't imagine that we're going to be trashing it! I'm sure it's totally fabulous. I can't wait to start reading it. I was thinking of doing the same thing that Annie is doing, but I don't think I would read much else if I did that! Maybe I could do it in two years...

Chris, I'm joining in too! It's been a long time since I read anything by King and the time has come. I miss him! I tried to read Under the Dome when it came out, but I just couldn't get into it. I'm excited to get started!

Natalie~Coffee and a Book Chick said...

I've really enjoyed incorporating more Stephen King into my reading this year. I also really enjoyed Lisey's Story, even though it wasn't my favorite of his thus far. I have heard so much about The Stand, so I really can't not read it! So I've signed up as well, and can't wait to start.

Anonymous said...

Phew. After reading your initial impressions I'm not quite so scared to be tackling this one.