He may be considered an elder statesman of fiction, but unlike some of his contemporaries, Stephen King doesn’t rest on his laurels. He’s produced an amazing total of 56 novels, and of those novels, many of them have become some of the most famous tales of our generation. King’s latest novel, Doctor Sleep, is a sequel to one of the most iconic stories in the modern horror genre The Shining.
While on his publicity tour for Doctor Sleep, King took the time to chime in with his opinion on series like Twilight and The Hunger Games. On Twilight, he said “I agree with Abra’s teacher friend (in Doctor Sleep) who calls Twilight and books like it tweenager porn. They’re really not about vampires and werewolves. They’re about how the love of a girl can turn a bad boy good.”
King has been rather vocal with his opinion for Stephanie Meyer’s supernatural romance series in the past, but he also had some criticism for Hunger Games. “I read The Hunger Games and didn’t feel an urge to go on.”
Surprisingly, he was kinder on E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey series, saying, “They call it mommy porn, but it’s not really mommy porn. It is highly charged, sexually driven fiction for women who are, say, between 18 and 25. But a golden age of horror? I wouldn’t say it is.”
Having not read The Hunger Games, I can’t weigh in on what Uncle Stevie has to say about it. Maybe it really didn’t need a sequel. I do agree with King that the Twilight series is awful, but I’m kind of surprised by the implication Variety gave that he favors Fifty Shades of Grey. I read only the first few pages of the story and that was enough; the prose was just that bad. However, it is a pretty vague bit of text, so that may not be his true feelings on the BDSM series.
What do you think about what Uncle Stevie has to say here? Do you agree with his perspectives on these series? Why don’t you just tell us what you think in the comments below?
Source: Variety
I disagree with King about Hunger Games, but it makes sense if he only read the first book in the series. The second and third are all about revolution and the youth and poor rising up against the tyrannical society that holds everyone down. It seems to be something that would be up his alley, but the politics and uprising doesn’t take place until the second book. The first just sets up the world and the Games themselves, which is important in seeing how the government instills fear in everyone by taking away their children.