#Review Rose Madder, by Stephen King… 4 stars

MY REVIEW 4 stars:

I’m a little confused…

Lol, I just walked away from my computer for like an hour and came back to this one sentence that I’d written to start my review, but then got distracted. I’m a little confused… Wow, talk about the truth!!  Is it weird to say that most of the Stephen King books that I’ve read – left me feeling a little confused?  And then I sit there, and think, and over analyze. Then, I ultimately decide that he made them confusing on purpose so that his readers would sit there, and think, and over analyze…. But for what? To realize that it’s all supposed to blur together and not make sense yet make total sense all at once… Does that make sense?

Rose Madder left me feeling a bit more confused than most, but in a new sort of way. It isn’t because too many knots are left untied, like in lots of King books. It’s more like a, ‘what the f**k just happened?’ sort of way. Dreams are supposed to be confusing, and yet, so are the odd places between reality and alternate dimensions where the people bouncing back and forth wind up with a whirlwind inside them that contains a bit of both worlds.

In Rose Madder there are two main characters. They’re a married couple named Norman and Rose, or Rosie, as her friends call her. Norman is a sadistically abusive man that has basically put her through hell for well over a decade. He beats her regularly, and some of the incidents that Rosie reveals along the way left me in tears! In my opinion, Norman is one of the worst of King’s (human) characters. Anyway, Rosie winds up finding the courage to escape and she does a pretty awesome job at staying low, taking the right busses and even finds a halfway house for abusive women. Unfortunately, Norman’s skills as a true blue detective get the better of her. He’s good – really good! About ¾ of the book is spent with Rosie trying to make herself a fresh start and stay hidden, and Norman is on a mission to track her down.

While in hiding, Rosie finds a painting for her new apartment that contains some very significant details of the book that I shouldn’t really tell, as not to be a spoiler. She also meets a guy while she’s purchasing it. They hit it off, and despite her fear of relationships, and really just men in general, she decides to let him take her out. His name is Bill and he’s sweet, patient and extremely slow moving with Rosie which is both cheesy and refreshing. Norman, on the other hand, gets a big break from a bus station employee who remembers her route. From here things really pick up… and in true King fashion gets extremely super strange. It’s good strange, but definitely a weird strange, and as I mentioned at the beginning it’s just as confusing as it should be — which is awesome, yet all at the same time sucks, because now I’m left sitting here, thinking, and over analyzing, and that’s pretty dumb. 4 stars for me. I really loved the story and the characters, but I felt like it was missing something and I really hate to end such books on a lost note.

DESCRIPTION:

The #1 national bestseller about a woman who escapes an abusive marriage is “one of Stephen King’s most engrossing horror novels. Relentlessly paced and brilliantly orchestrated…fueled by an air of danger immediate and overwhelming” (Publishers Weekly).

Rosie Daniels leaves her husband, Norman, after fourteen years in an abusive marriage. She is determined to lose herself in a place where he won’t find her. She’ll worry about all the rest later.

Alone in a strange city, she begins to make a new life, and good things finally start to happen. Meeting Bill is one; and getting an apartment is another. Still, it’s hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason. Norman is a cop, with the instincts of a predator. He’s very good at finding people, even if he is losing his mind.

Fixed on revenge, Norman Daniels becomes a force of relentless terror and savageness, a man almost mythic in his monstrosity. For Rosie to survive, she must enter her own myth and become a woman she never knew she could be: Rose Madder.

“Riveting, engrossing…packed with suspense” (People), Stephen King infuses this novel with an edge-of-your-seat, chilling atmosphere. Rose Madder is “an eerie, remarkably mature and moving novel” (The Washington Post).