Sadie Hartmann's Reviews > Later

If you identify as a Constant Reader, you approach a new King book with a personal reading journey decades in the making. Your first one. Your favorite one. The one that made you fall in love. The one that broke your heart. The book you tell everyone is the worst. The last one you read. The one you’ve read the most. The Top Ten. The Bottom Five.



Sometimes I feel like Constant Readers are the saltiest Stephen King fans there are.



We certainly can be the hardest to please. *Raising my hand*

When we hold a new King book in our hands, what are we looking for? For me, it’s the characters. Stephen King’s characters are EVERYTHING TO ME. They have lived in my reader’s heart since the moment they came to life on the page and they will never leave.



Oy the Billybumbler.

The Loser’s Club

Father Callahan

Dick Hallorann

Mother Abagail

Tom Cullen

Jack Sawyer & Wolf

Jake & Sadie

Roland

Danny

Andy Dufresne & Red

Gordy, Chris, Vern & Teddy



And on and on and on.

For me, King is in his wheelhouse when he’s writing from a kid’s POV and they have to stare down some unimaginable horror. That’s where the magic is for me. And so his new Hard Case Crime, LATER brought the magic home for me after a long spell of not feeling it.

LATER is the story of a young boy named Jamie who lives a pretty comfortable life with his mother. They have a sweet relationship. Fairly early on, it’s revealed to readers that he has supernatural gifting (because it’s a Stephen King book and we show up for this).

Jamie is open to his mother about his gift but for the most part, he internalizes the depth of the struggle he goes through bearing the weight of it. As Jamie grows older and new relationships come in and out of his life, he realizes that some people can be trusted with knowing about what he is able to do and some cannot.

Jamie’s narrative sucked me right in. It was like coming home. I walked up to the first page and King reached out his hand and I just fucking left the world behind. There is this familiarity with the style and the storytelling where I was just like, “Yep. This is the shit right here.”

As Jamie gets a little older and begins to understand the power of his gift, he encounters something with even greater power and this scared the shit out of me.

It has been a minute since King tapped that for me. It felt awesome!

My husband was in the living room while I was reading and a few times I held out my paperback like Simba the lion cub in the circle of life moment shouting, “YES!! THIS!!”

There are so many things to love about this book-it's like a love letter to fans who have been with him for a long time because he tucks in some little tie-ins to the King universe that made me cry.

Literally. Fucking. Cried.

And you know, this book is not perfect. But if anyone else BUT the King wrote it, people would be like, OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER!! But we hold Stephen King to this whole other standard. And I’m not shaming anyone because I do it too.

SLEEPING BEAUTIES? Meh. (I didn't even finish it)

ELEVATION? Meh.
THE INSTITUTION? Meh.

As I said, it has been a minute.

This book is a five-star for me. There was exactly one thing I didn't like about it. One. And I’m going to forgive it because for the most part, I was in blissed-out, Constant Reader euphoria and it felt damn good. He still has it for me. He’s still the man.

Sadie