I read a scary book in honor of Halloween! Are you proud of me?

 To be clear.... I DON'T LIKE TO BE SCARED.

• I don't watch scary T.V. shows,
• I don't go to scary movies,
• and I certainly don't read scary books!

It's not worth paying the price for a movie ticket, only to miss 80% of the movie because my hands are covering my eyes. And there are plenty of wonderful books to read, so I don't need ones that will trigger my anxiety to the point that I'm scared to turn the page (or more accurately, touch the screen on my Kindle). 

But! A few months ago, my friend and fellow book devourer, Lena, suggested a Stephen King novel.

"No way," I immediately responded. 'The 'King' of all things gruesome? The 'King' of horror?! Hard pass!"

"This one's not horror," Lena explained. Turns out it's lightweight, time-travel fantasy about a guy who finds a hidden portal that allows him to travel into the past and decides to use it to go back to 1963 and (hopefully) prevent the JFK assassination.  

"Okay," I thought. "Why not?" Well, the most compelling "Why not?" is its length, over 800 pages or 30 hours for the audio version. I ordered it on audio anyway. Midway through the semester, there is no way I have time to read an 800-page book. Listening during my commute down to UVU was the only option.

Within the first 15 minutes, I was hooked. Fully captivated by the characters and mesmerized by the voice. And I don't mean the vocal quality of the reader (though that was excellent) but rather the writing voice of author, Stephen King. Dang, the guy is good. So raw and real. In the day of that insidious AI shit, no one is more moved by honest, genuine voice than me. And just like that, I'm a Stephen King fan.

I listened to 11/22/63 (yes, the name of the time-travel novel is the date of the assassination), all 30 hours of it, in about a week. It was so, so good, You should definitely download it.

But then what? I wanted, no needed, to read another King novel, but most are of the horror genre. What to do? One of my students is researching exposure therapy for her semester writing topic, so I've read a couple of her papers on the subject. Am I ever gonna use exposure therapy to overcome my world-renowned phobia of slithery creatures with no arms or legs? Nope. But horror novels? Maybe? I asked Shulamith to find me another Stephen King novel even if it's horror. She downloaded the book Holly, and I jumped right in. 

Holly did not disappoint. It wasn't exactly traditional horror, with monsters jumping out and scaring people, but it was certainly dark and gruesome. Hard to read in places, but I persevered because I was once again drawn in by the characters and their stories, revealed through the lovely literary voice of a brilliant writer. Shulamith is reading it now, and she mentioned that it's trending to read a scary book in October for Halloween. Well, okay, then. I'm nothing if not trending.

I read a scary book in honor of Halloween. And now I'm reading another one, Mr. Mercedes, also by King. Are you proud of me?