David Carver, an eight-year-old (known to the evil Tak as Prayboy), is the hero of this violent, gruesome, horrific tale of good versus evil. David, his father, Ralph, his mother, Ellen, and his sister, Pie, were passing the desolate desert town of Desperation when all the RV tires blew out, and they met The Cop, who wasn't a cop at all. Soon David and his family are locked in jail, where they are soon joined by others, all trapped in the same hell. And hell, it is complete with creepy crawlers, evil demons, tons of dead, bloated bodies, and a completely whacked-out ancient evil curse. Just when everything goes to heck (and you can't read one page more of blood, guts, and gore), Johnny Marinville, author extraordinaire—turns into the aloof redeemer and saves the day. This is classic Stephen King and good to the last drop. ( )

Wow, I can't believe I'm giving a Stephen King novel three stars, but I am. Normally I love everything he writes, but this one...I'm not sure. The writing itself was, as always, excellent. I think where it fell apart for me is when it became all God-crazy. I understand the message, and for the most part I think it's a great one, but it came across as somewhat crazy-bible-thumper-pushing-religion-up-my-nose-like.

It's quite a long read too and I almost gave up in a couple of places. When they went into the theater the tension dipped for a few chapters. I know that the story-telling and flashback-type things were necessary to understand Tak and what happened at the mine and he did it with dialogue which helped avoid info-dumping, but if I didn't already know this author and was confident there'd be a payoff in the end, I'd have set the book down at that point.

Ahh, the ending...meh. I won't give it away and maybe lots of people enjoyed it and found it touching or poignant, or whatever it is that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but I was disappointed. The thing that usually keeps me reading throughout his books is the guarantee of an unexpected and strange ending. This one wasn't either. I expected it from the point that Johnny left the group and it wasn't strange at all. Mr. King, where's my strange? I want my strange.

Kidding. Would I recommend Desperation? Depends on the reader. Those who are fans of King for his style and voice won't be disappointed. Those who are fans because of his "typical" plotting style and characterization may not like it as much as other King novels. Those who haven't read King before I recommend you pick up Misery, IT, Christine, Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, or Duma Key first. ( )

Desperation was an amazing novel that is filled with horror, blood, gore, and trained vultures and coyotes. Desperation is a real town in Nevada, lost in the desert.
As visitors go through the town. They get pulled over by a insane 6 foot 7 inch tall buff cop. This cop either plant drugs on u or blow your tires and tell u there’s a insane sniper and that u have to come with him. He’ll lock u up in jail cells and if you didn’t corporate you would be killed.
They call him collie. Collie is not human he is a demon from the “china pit”. The china pit is a abandoned mining company. The unfortunate souls who went through this town were author John Marville, Mary and husband Ralph with their 10 year old kid David, Mr. Billingsley, Ellen. They escape from the jail cells thanks to David and Gods miracle. They then team up to kill collie and escape from Desperation.
I think Stephen King is a genius, mixing horror and drama to create this story. He send me chills down my back and his description made me think I was in the story. I couldn’t put the book down. I would recommend this to any young adult to elderly because of the blood, gore, language and sexual scenes. If your reading this then I hope you read this book ( )