Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just read the whole book in 24 hours - excellent, 16 Nov 2008
I might be biased as I am a Stephen King fanatic but these are his best short stories yet. If you enjoy his work you will love these. If you are new to Stephen King and not sure if you will like his stuff then I would recommend this set of short stories as an introduction. As King is getting older (he turned 60 this year) these stories have a running theme throughout of mortality and what kind of afterlife there could possibly be (In stories such as Willa, The New York Times at Special Bargain rates). He also has an uplifting story about September 11th - someone who survived who was meant to be in the twin towers and how he comes to terms with this. The Gingerbread Girl I think is the best story in the book - I couldn't put it down until I'd finished - a woman who has lost a child starts running and just runs away from all her problems only to find a bigger problem where her running comes in handy.
I don't want to give too much away but other themes are mid-life crisis (Stationary Bike), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (N), a cat from hell (!) nuclear bombs, and a story involving a porta - loo.
If you are a SK fan you probably already bought this, if not buy it if you like short stories, buy it if you like weird and wacky and stories, uplifting stories and stories that cause you to question the world.
I got this book yesterday and just finished it as I couldn't put it down
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A mixed bag but overall good Stephen King, 5 Dec 2008
Stephen King's output has been a little patchy for the past few years. This has meant that whenever a new book of his comes out my first thoughts are 'is this going to be good Stephen King, okay Stephen King or just plain poor Stephen King?'
With Just after Sunset the answer to that question would be that it is all three - good, okay & poor.
Just after Sunset is a collection of 13 (a very bad number, according to a character in one of the tales) short stories. A few are not very good. I didn't like Harveys Dream, Graduation Afternoon or Willa. The latter is the weakest of the lot and as it is the first story it doesn't get the book off to a very promising start. A few are not bad. Not great, but okay. The Cat from Hell, Ayana and Stationary Bike come into this category. The majority though, are excellent, almost on a par with anything Stephen King as written previously. Gingerbread Girl, N, Rest Stop, Mute and A Very Tight Place are all excellent little stories. Most of these could have been puffed out and made into book sized novels but their sheer brevity makes them both punchy and powerful.
In the introduction, Stephen King tells us that writing short stories was an ability that at one time he had lost. Stephen Kings constant readers should be as pleased as I am that he has regained this ability.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not his best collection, 25 Jan 2009
'Just After Sunset' is the latest collection of short stories from the master of horror, Stephen King. This collection has a quite varied subject matter throughout the different stories, covering everything from kidnapping, obsessive compulsive disorder, 9/11, betrayal, a nuclear bomb, even an evil cat!
The standout stories for me in this collection were "N", which is a story about a psychologist who commits suicide and his sister reads his journals to find out why; "The Cat From Hell" whish is about a hitman who is hired to kill a cat; "Willa", a story about a man who is looking for his wife; "Rest Stop" which is about a man who hears a woman being abused in a pubic toilet; and my personal favourite "The Gingerbread Girl" which is about a woman who seperates from her husband and goes to live in her father's beach house but is then kidnapped by a rich psychopath.
This isn't the best collection of stories available from Mr King, especially when comparing it to the likes of Night Shift and Everything's Eventual but is well worth a read, especially if you're a fan of the horror and mystery genres - I would of preferred a new novel though to be honest. No doubt half of these will end up as TV films in the near future, but there are some good tales here, so I'll look forward to seeing them.
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