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Book Reviews of Needful Things

Needful Things
Needful Things
Author: Stephen King
ISBN-13: 9780140839531
ISBN-10: 0140839534
Publication Date: 1991
Edition: First
Rating:
  • Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
 3

4.3 stars, based on 3 ratings
Publisher: Viking
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

57 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed Needful Things on + 80 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
One of King's greatest stories. I loved it!
Lindy
reviewed Needful Things on + 7 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
page turner!
reviewed Needful Things on
Helpful Score: 1
A great read! But something is missing from the other reviews given... in the latter portion of the book it gets really funny... never thought King could write an "all out screamer" while making me laugh!
As a teenager I always wondered, what was it like to be a resident of Castle Rock?Well, this is you chance to live as the "fly on the wall".

Awesome book overall... BTW, connections are made to "The Body" (Stand by Me), The Dead Zone, Cujo, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (The Shawshank Redemption), Christine, It, The Dark Half, The Sun Dog (Four Past Midnight), The Library Policeman (Four Past Midnight; a thin reference, but a reference nevertheless), The Night Flyer (Nightmare and Dreamscapes) and The Dark Tower series, WHEW!!!
reviewed Needful Things on + 14 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Oh my! I LOVED this one!
reviewed Needful Things on + 20 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
One of my all time favorite books by Stephen King. I have read this book many times, which is impressive because it's so long! It is a great read.
MyLikeIt avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 450 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Oooh, I really enjoyed this one! Scary plot, intriguing theme. A good read!
karenscreams avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Definitely a must read for King fans. One of his best.
reviewed Needful Things on + 46 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
In tradition of 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King writes Needful Things through the view of many characters, not just one main character, and keeps the reader guessing throughout the entire novel what will happen to which character. It works so well in Needful Things that I found myself reading madly and gaping my mouth many times. Truly a gruesome and horrifying experience, in Needful Things, King creates great characters, Alan Pangborn, Norris Ridgewick, Polly Chalmers, Nettie Cobb, Hugh Priest, Ace Merrill, John LaPointe, and maybe the best villian he has ever created in Leland Gaunt. The way he makes Gaunt so low key and friendly, and evil at the same time is wonderful. He also ties in all his other novels which have taken place in Castle Rock such as Cujo, The Dead Zone, and the novella The Body, very well. Sure, you'll be flipping back to see what character did what to whom when the novel takes its turning points, but that's the fun of it. How King can write so many things in 700 pages and keep the reader hooked and interested. And of course, the ending in which evil does not fully lose. God I love that! Needful Things, one of Stephen King's most entertaining books. A must read!
reviewed Needful Things on + 8 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
a good scary book
reviewed Needful Things on + 134 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Classic, enjoyable King. The ending was a bit abrupt and left me blinking expecting more of a wrap-up, but an engaging story and masterful writing as always.
reviewed Needful Things on + 210 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is one of my favorite King novels.
Chlorene avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 34 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A very good book.
reviewed Needful Things on + 164 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A wonderful new store has opened in the little town of Castle Rock, Maine. Whatever your heart's secret desire - sexual pleasure, wealth, power, or even more precious things - it's for sale. And even though every item has a nerve-shattering price, the owner is always ready to make a bargain. In this chilling novel, evil is on a shopping spree and out to scare you witless.
reviewed Needful Things on + 17 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book is scary!! This merchant is like no other......
reviewed Needful Things on + 63 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
good book.
reviewed Needful Things on + 17 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I love this book!
reviewed Needful Things on + 5 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
My favorite Stephen King book........highly recommend.
Great read.
reviewed Needful Things on + 131 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This was truly one of my favorite King books. Very good!
meowysmiles avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 140 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is a good read as most Stephen King books you can't go wrong,recommended : )
reviewed Needful Things on
Helpful Score: 1
I read this a long time ago and really enjoyed it.
reviewed Needful Things on + 9 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I read this book while in my early teens, I think that had I been a little older, I would have been able to understand the book better. As it stands, I liked it very much. Even now, I find myself thinking about some of the instances from the book. (Especially around the end of August when the TV people start doing stories about Elvis, and when my hands get crampy in the winter and I wonder if I'll get arthritis).
jdocop avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 66 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
What can I say? It\'s Stephen King.....scary.....far out....
reviewed Needful Things on + 12 more book reviews
really get you going
gigi avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 355 more book reviews
In this chilling novel by one of the most potent imaginations of our time, evil is on a shopping spree and out to scare you witless..."
reviewed Needful Things on + 53 more book reviews
A wonderful book, very creepy!! Just what you can expect from S. King.
reviewed Needful Things on + 4 more book reviews
I am a rabid reader of SK books.This was one I really enjoyed.
reviewed Needful Things on + 32 more book reviews
Makes me glad I'm not materialistic! Great read King does it again!
reviewed Needful Things on + 29 more book reviews
With the "Last Castle Rock Story" King bids a magnificent farewell to the fictional Maine town where much of his previous work has been set. Of grand proportion, the novel ranks with King's best, in both plot and characterization. A new store, Needful Things, opens in town, and its proprietor, Leland Gaunt, offers seemingly unbeatable (read: Faustian) bargains to Castle Rock's troubled citizens. Among them are Polly Chalmers, lonely seamstress whose arthritis is only one of the physical and psychic pains she must bear; Brian Rusk, the 11-year-old boy whose mother is not precisely attentive; and Alan Pangborn, the new sheriff whose wife and son have recently died. These are only three of the half-dozen or so brilliantly drawn people met in the novel's one-month time span. As the dreams of each strikingly memorable character, major and minor, inexorably turn to nightmare, individuals and soon the community are overwhelmed, while the precise nature of Gaunt's evil thrillingly stays just out of focus. King, like Leland Gaunt, knows just what his customers want.
suspenseprincess avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 51 more book reviews
This is one of my favorite authors.
reviewed Needful Things on + 131 more book reviews
Truly one of my most favorite King novels.
sarah5775 avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 386 more book reviews
I'm a big fan of Stephen King, and this is not my favorite novel by him, but its still a good one. It is pretty original, about a mysterious man who opens up a shop in a small town that sells the things a person wants most- but for a price. Much better than the movie.
reviewed Needful Things on
Oh, very good! Looks right inside you, finds out what your weakness is, and destroys you (and everyone around you) through it. As usual, King's "horror" stories have a much deeper side if you can look through the scare to find it. The message is there!
reviewed Needful Things on + 8 more book reviews
Another great book from Stephen King.
reviewed Needful Things on + 56 more book reviews
This was King's best if you ask me
reviewed Needful Things on + 6 more book reviews
A good story but a bit longer than necessary
reviewed Needful Things on + 124 more book reviews
This was my favorite King novel
Mac1973 avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 14 more book reviews
Good Series
romeo avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 334 more book reviews
Leland Gaunt is a stranger-and he calls his shop Needful Things. 11 year old Brian Rusk is his first customer, and Brian finds just what he wants most in the world:a '56 Sandy Koufax baseball card. By the end of the week, Mr. Gaunt's business is fairly booming, and why not? At Needful Things, there's something for everyone. And, of course, there is always a price. For Leland Gaunt, the pleasure of doing business lies chiefly in seeing how much people will pay for their most secret dreams and desires. And as Leland always points out, at Needful Things, the prices are high indeed. Does that stop people from buying? Has it ever? For Allen and Polly, this one weekl in autumn will be an awful test-a test of will, desire, and pain. Above all, it will be a test of their ability to grasp the true nature of their enemy. They may have a chance...But maybe not, because, as Mr. Gaunt knows, almost everything is for sale:love, hope, even the human soul.
reviewed Needful Things on + 32 more book reviews
I read this book while I was pregnant with my daughter, my doctor thought I was crazy.....I on the other hand really enjoyed the book its one of my favorites of King's!
preachermanlt avatar reviewed Needful Things on
In my opinion, this is the best book by Stephen King... so involved and the depth is amazing
reviewed Needful Things on + 37 more book reviews
one of stephen kings best.
reviewed Needful Things on + 102 more book reviews
I'm a Stephen King fan. Great book but will take you awhile to read. It's pretty thick. It's a good long read.
reviewed Needful Things on
this book is great. i read it in a week. well, 4 days. greatest book i've read
kathyk avatar reviewed Needful Things on
Very good story about greed and materialism.
reviewed Needful Things on + 49 more book reviews
Stephen King's books are always better than the movies, so do yourself a favor and read the book.
reviewed Needful Things on
Classic early King
Chlorene avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 34 more book reviews
A very good book.
reviewed Needful Things on + 118 more book reviews
Stephen King's final chapter about the town he put on the map..Castle Rock, Maine. In this book Leland Gaunt, a stranger, opens a store called "Needful Things". The store's first customer, eleven year old Brian Rusk, finds what he wants more than anything else in the whole world - a 56' Sandy Kaufax baseball card. By the end of the week Mr. Gaunt's business is really booming, and why not? At Needful Things there is something for everyone! But of course, everything comes at a price...
sdkelley avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 3 more book reviews
Great book - I was a little sad at it being the last set in Castle Rock, though.
cdayzee avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 113 more book reviews
Not my usual genre, but this was defintely a good read!! Kept me interested.
reviewed Needful Things on
Excellent BOOK.
romeo avatar reviewed Needful Things on + 334 more book reviews
A wonderful new store has opened in the little town of Castle Rock, Maine. Whatever your heart desires-sexual pleasures, wealth, power or even more precious things-it's for sale. And even though every item has a nerve shattering price, the owner is always ready to make a bargain.
reviewed Needful Things on + 10 more book reviews
a wonderful new store has opened in castle rock. whatever your hearts secret desire, sexual pleasure, wealth, power, or more precious things, its for sale. eveerything has a price...the owner is ready to make a bargain.
reviewed Needful Things on + 8 more book reviews
Loved this book, it's a very long read. The front cover on mine has a different picture and has been torn off and taped back on. The back cover also has been creased in several spots, then the whole cover was taped to reinforce it.
nadinemay avatar reviewed Needful Things on
cover is a little wrinkled and missing the "ller" in best seller but its completely readable
reviewed Needful Things on + 11 more book reviews
The cover is a little beat up, but otherwise the book is in good condition
reviewed Needful Things on + 81 more book reviews
The Cover is different than this photo.