Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It has been quite some time since I read something by Stephen King, and I am perfectly fine admitting that although clearly a legend, he’s not one of my favorites. However, I picked this novella up for two reasons: 1. It seemed like a short, easy read, which by definition alone, is what a novella promises. And 2. The premise was vastly different than the tired domestic thrillers I am ridiculously sick of right now. At this point, I’d read a book about a box of magical glue sticks or a can of enchanted tuna instead of the same old “woman has amnesia and can’t recall if she killed her husband/neighbor/friend/child” plot line (but give me a few weeks, I’ll be back on my bullshit before you know it).

This little munchkin of a book didn’t disappoint me. I was expecting, and hoping for, an entertaining quick read and that’s exactly what it delivered. I am pretty confident I could have breezed through this whole thing in one sitting had I not started reading it a 12 am like the psychopath I am. There wasn’t a lot of “meat” to this storyline, but it didn’t need it. The premise was introduced, events happened, tensions came to a head, and a conclusion occurred. Pretty damn simple, but I was still able to care about the main character and the never fully explained little button box, without endless amounts of unnecessary details and droning on and on and on …and on...about things that do nothing to further the storyline. I actually think the fast paced nature of this plot, this girl literally goes from preteen to college graduate in under 150 pages, forced me to get completely sucked into her world – without any of the filler fluff that is commonplace in books nowadays.

It reads almost like an updated (it take place in the 1970’s and 1980’s, so I guess it depends what you consider “updated”) version of an Aesop’s Fable. I sort of liked that it made me question my own morality, and maybe a little bit of my mortality, too.



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