Thinner

Title: Thinner
Author: Richard Bachman, Stephen King
First Published: January 1, 1984
Publisher: Signet
Pages: 433
Genre: Horror, Supernatural, Thriller
Format: Ebook
Source: Purchased
Rating:


Synopsis:

“You can’t do anything… It’s gone too far. You understand, Halleck? Too…far.

Attorney Billy Halleck seriously enjoys living his life of upper-class excess. He’s got it all­—an expensive home in Connecticut, a loving family…and fifty extra pounds that his doctor repeatedly warns will be the death of him. Then, in a moment of carelessness, Halleck commits vehicular manslaughter when he strikes a jaywalking old woman crossing the street. But Halleck has some powerful local connections, and gets off with a slap on the wrist…much to the fury of the woman’s mysterious and ancient father, who exacts revenge with a single word: “Thinner.” Now a terrified Halleck finds the weight once so difficult to shed dropping effortlessly—and rapidly—by the week. Soon there will be nothing left of Billy Halleck…unless he can somehow locate the source of his living nightmare and reverse what’s happened to him before he utterly wastes away…

Buy the Book: Amazon

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Review

Do you know what one of the most un-fun things in the world is? Starving. Speaking as someone with experience and a stressful hospital stay because of it, this book has become that much more terrifying to me after that experience.

Billy is a scum bag lawyer saddled with a gypsy curse that leaves him withering away slowly after committing a heinous crime. Both body and mind begin to deteriorate at an alarming rate and Billy finds himself fighting for his life. He goes through all the series of emotions you would expect from someone after they figure out that they’re dying; Sometimes he’s scared, sometimes he’s angry, sometimes he starts looking to who else he can blame and claim victimhood. Some might not like Billy, but his experience is terrifyingly real. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor guy even though he was a total asshole, pardon my language, I was impressed with how much I could feel so much sympathy for such an unscrupulous character.

Actually, just about everyone in this novel was a terrible person, there wasn’t a single one that I liked, and I found that I didn’t much care. Despite the fact that the book uses the tired old gypsy curse trope it stands as one of the best revenge thrillers I’ve ever read. It was my first taste of body horror and it quickly became a favorite subgenre of horror. I read this book start to finish on a plane and boy was it stressful.

Thinner was a non-stop thrill ride from start to finish. This book was incredibly difficult to put down, King really does know how to write good action scenes that truly gets the heart racing and makes me want to fly through the pages. There are very few books that I feel have a perfect ending and this one had it, I actually pushed my rating higher for that reason alone. This book gets overlooked a lot given how huge Stephen King’s catalog of work is and it’s a shame, it’s definitely underappreciated.

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