AMAZEBALLS!! The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower Book #2) – Book Review

I have this habit , whenever I pick a book up I feel a sort of Anticipation , anticipation that the book I hold is gonna be a remarkable journey , Maybe I’ll learn something new, Maybe I’ll be impressed by what’s in the book . Yet sometimes I Dread reading a new book , Knowing that what I have in my hands is gonna disappoint me , it doesn’t happen very often but it did happen when I was intentionally stalling myself from reading this book . But boy do I love to be proven wrong sometimes .

Book Blurbs:

In 1978, Stephen King introduced the world to the last gunslinger, Roland of Gilead.  Nothing has been the same since. More than twenty years later, the quest for the Dark Tower continues to take readers on a wildly epic ride. Through parallel worlds and across time, Roland must brave desolate wastelands and endless deserts, drifting into the unimaginable and the familiar. A classic tale of colossal scope—crossing over terrain from The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, The Talisman, Black House, Hearts in Atlantis, ’Salem’s Lot, and other familiar King haunts—the adventure takes hold with the turn of each page.

And the tower awaits….

The Second Volume in the Epic Dark Tower Series…

The Drawing of the Three

While pursuing his quest for the Dark Tower through a world that is a nightmarishly distorted mirror image of our own, Roland is drawn through a mysterious door that brings him into contemporary America.

Here he links forces with the defiant young Eddie Dean, and with the beautiful, brilliant, and brave Odetta Holmes, in a savage struggle against underworld evil and otherworldly enemies.

Once again, Stephen King has masterfully interwoven dark, evocative fantasy and icy realism

-Source : Goodreads

What I liked :

When I read the first book of the Dark Tower Book series I was left hugely disappointing as no matter who you asked , no matter which list you checked People would come forward and vouch for The Dark Tower as one of the best work in fantasy . Yet i absolutely hated the first book.* But this book just changed my perspective of that book and changed the misconception I had that maybe The Dark Tower book is the most over-rated book in the whole Fantasy Genre.

*you can read my review for the first Dark Tower book over here

So to start with the things I liked about this book the first and foremost thing is obviously the writing , I know when i say something like that it sounds cliched it’s like saying that any movie that has Tom Hanks in it will have great acting display* But there aren’t’ many authors that i have read that can write everything so beautifully , off the top of my mind only Tolkien and Patrick Rothfus are writers I can name who write so beautifully . It’s almost poetic but it actually looks beautiful in your mind .And i have to admire how good King’s writing is

*That’s a reference to the movie Sully of course , haven’t seen it but i can bet that it has great acting.

What also amazed me in this book was how even things that made absolutely no sense in the first book and felt gibberish now made sense , a case in point being the prophecies from the Oracle and the Man in Black in the first book , Those part felt boring in the first book but now become stuff of huge significance .

Book Quotes:

“What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common….”

In fact the book actually blended a lot of genres fantasy-sci-fi-western-mafia-pscyhological thriller etc ,the book looked to me more as sci-fi than a fantasy book .

The introduction of the new characters in Eddie ,Odetta & Detta brought something i really missed in the first book and that’s character you want to root for because for all things that Roland maybe he is not a guy that i wanted to root for at the end of the first book .

In regards to Roland his character was very unlikable to me in the first book and not much changed in that view for me after this book but I sure saw some insights into his thought process and I did start to feel some sympathy for the Roland .

The action sequences were very well written & had me on the edge of my seats most of the time and that’s another welcome addition to this book because the first book had a lot of stagnant moment . This book on contrary has absolutely no dull moments and I as a reader was on the hook from the get go .

Book Quote:

“Might as well try to drink the ocean with a spoon as argue with a lover.”

Another thing i really enjoyed reading this book was how Stephen king actually managed to show 3 mental illness in a new view , First the resemblance of Eddie with a schizophrenic [moments of black outs , 3rd person auditory hallucination ,neologism ,believing against all reasoning about fantasy lands, believing his actions are controlled by someone else] . The Defining of Odetta’s Dissociative disorder & the symptoms of Mania in Jack Mort [ Doing things not expected of him , going on a spending spree, Committing acts of high adrenaline surge , & how it all finished ] being a Medical Resident I actually enjoyed these moments and was thinking to myself how amazingly well these actual medical illness were described as something magical instead of  actual Psychiatric illnesses.

What I Didn’t like :

All things considered I think this book is a more satisfying read when you consider it as a Sci-fi or any genre not fantasy because for a fantasy there’s been a very weak world building so far. And OK i know some will argue that it’s a Dystopian world , a World that’s moved on and there’s little to explain the world , But i would disagree with that statement , I strongly suggest people making such arguments to go and read Dune by Frank Herbert

That book had a land filled with desert and only Desert but Frank Herbert created magic with his words to explain his creation to minutes of detail whereas King just explains them as a beach with lobstrocities and sand and gravel all around .

Book Quote:

“For every mother who ever cursed God for her child dead in the road, for every father who ever cursed the man who sent him away from the factory with no job, for every child who was ever born to pain and asked why, this is the answer. Our lives are like these things I build. Sometimes they fall down for a reason, sometimes they fall down for no reason at all.”  

There’s also something that the book lacked for me was excitement for the future books , I read the book and it was very satisfying and yet after I had finished reading the Afterwords of the book I didn’t feel any rush to go and finish the next book , i was simply calm , this is not necessarily a bad thing but i think that i have been more curious about outcomes of books with lesser mysteries and unimportant plots than the Dark Tower and it’s high risk mysteries and adventures

Conclusions :

Book Quote:

“Where you think I’m goan?’
‘Well,’ Eddie said, ‘what was behind Door Number One wasn’t so hot, and what was behind Door Number Two was even worse, so now, instead of quitting like sane people, we’re going to go right on ahead and check out Door Number Three. The way things have been going, I think it’s likely to be something like Godzilla or Ghidra the Three-Headed Monster, but I’m an optimist. I’m still hoping for the stainless steel cookware.”

Maybe I’m just being picky to create a con when none exist , but i thoroughly enjoyed it and considering the level of disappointment i felt with the first book i was absolutely impressed by how things turned around this time and I can’t recommend this book highly enough , That said I’m still not calling the Dark Tower as a fantasy masterpiece , sure a masterpiece of book but not yet a fantasy Masterpiece per me at least

 

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