Rose Madder - Stephen King

A single drop of blood on a bedsheet is the pivotal moment that sends an abused housewife over the edge and grasping for the front door handle.

Norman is a two faced coin. In the eyes of the public he is a hero but in the eyes of Rosie Daniels he is a monster. Terrified and in a noisy city hundreds of miles from home she is like a square peg in a round hole and she is like a red rag to a bull that is her husband.Can she escape his grasp and who is the woman in the painting?




'I'm really Rosie,

And I'm Rosie Real,

You better believe me,

I'm a great big deal...'


As a young teen of 14 or 15 I was obsessed with Stephen King. His books resonated with me somewhere deep inside and he has probably been my biggest influence as an aspiring writer. As I get older I'm not sure whether I have simply outgrown King or if he isn't as good as he used to be. My favourite books of his are 'Bag of Bones', 'The Stand' and 'The Long Walk.'
I was disappointed with this book but it's hard to put my finger on the problem. Maybe it's a little bit too long, maybe the chase theme is nothing new or perhaps the supernatural elements of the book didn't work for me. I found the juxtaposition between a thriller and a horror a bit awkward and at the end of the book I was expecting an explanation that never quite came. As I reader I was left with too many loose threads and convoluted and confusing plot elements. Stephen King is famous for saying that he rarely plans his books and this book felt like a book that had lost the plot and was making itself up as it went along.

I would say that 'Rose Madder' is an average Stephen King romp but an average Stephen King romp is still better that an average book by lesser writers. But sadly I will have to rank this alongside 'Thinner' and 'Rage' and 'The Running Man' as my least liked novels of his.


3/5