REVIEW: SALEM'S LOT by Stephen King

Title: Salem's Lot
Author:  Stephen King
Series: -
Genres: Horror, Fantasy
Publisher: Anchor Books
Release: October 17th, 1975
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 653

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BLURB:

'Salem's Lot is a small New England town with white clapboard houses, tree-lined streets, and solid church steeples. That summer in 'Salem's Lot was a summer of home-coming and return; spring burned out and the land lying dry, crackling underfoot. Late that summer, Ben Mears returned to 'Salem's Lot hoping to cast out his own devils... and found instead a new unspeakable horror.

A stranger had also come to the Lot, a stranger with a secret as old as evil, a secret that would wreak irreparable harm on those he touched and in turn on those they loved.

All would be changed forever—Susan, whose love for Ben could not protect her; Father Callahan, the bad priest who put his eroded faith to one last test; and Mark, a young boy who sees his fantasy world become reality and ironically proves the best equipped to handle the relentless nightmare of 'Salem's Lot.

EXPECTATIONS: As you may know by now, I am a huge King fan, and I have no idea how I missed to read this one! Going into it, I have to admit I had pretty much no idea what this book was about, but I am so happy that I picked it up to listen to! I think this has become my favorite book by King!

THE WORLD: The plot takes place in 1975 if I'm not mistaken, in the state of Maine, where a town called Jarusalem's Lot is situated. The town is called just Salem's Lot as well. The book is filled with old references to songs, to movies, to old American dinners in the 70's. I liked the world around this book. I like reading books that are set in America in those days in general so I enjoyed the world in this one very much.

CHARACTERS: There are a number of characters in this book but I would like to speak only about a few of them. First - Ben Mears. He grew up in Salem's Lot, and now being a adult man he comes back in hopes of writing a book about the Marsten House, which to me is a character in itself. So Ben is I think just as any King's male protagonists. He's smart, he treats the love interest kindly and with love, he is of few words, usually a writer. I dunno it's not much to say about him, I liked him a lot. He was the kind of character I like to be leading the story. 

The love interest Susan Norton - a college graduate was also a very King type female character. Brave, loving, smart and much much wittier than the male one. I liked Susan as a single character and I liked them together. They completed each other I think. Susan was the kind of a girl that did what she thought was right. She did however, reminded me a little of Lucy from Dracula. Then let's mention Mark Petrie, a young boy, who is among the very few people who realize what is actually happening to their town. 

And of course let's mention the great, the evil, the undying Kurt Barlow, a mysterious Austrian who buys the old Marsten House and makes the town his kingdom of forever night! If I didn't mention this before I will mention it now - this book is a vampire book!

ROMANCE: Ben and Susan have a romance, but this is just one of the sub-plots to the book.

GOOD: I pretty much liked the entire book. The concept, the characters, all.

BAD: I think it could have been a bit shorter.

OVERALL: Overall, I enjoyed the heck out of this one! I highly recommend to read this one especially, since Halloween is coming! 

What do you think about SALEM'S LOT?