📚 KING SORROW Review — ⭐ 1.5/5 Stars (A Long, Painful Journey I Wish I Skipped 😬)
🚨 Trigger Warnings (Please Read First)
This book contains:
Graphic violence & death
Child abuse & child death
Suicide & suicidal ideation
Substance abuse & addiction
Emotional & physical abuse
Sexual content & sexual violence
Racism, antisemitism, and discrimination (including anti-gay & transphobia)
Mental illness
Bullying
Cursing
📖 Overview
King Sorrow by Joe Hill is a fantasy-horror novel about a group of college friends who summon a dragon-like entity—and spend the next 30 years dealing with the consequences.
At the center is Arthur Oakes, a brilliant but conflicted academic who gets blackmailed into stealing occult materials… which leads to the absolute worst decision of his life:
👉 summoning a demon called King Sorrow.
From there, the story spirals into moral dilemmas, yearly sacrifices, betrayal, and guilt.
All of which should have been gripping.
…but for me? 😬 not even close.
😬 My Honest Thoughts
I tried. I really did.
But this book was:
👉 Too long
👉 Slow to the point of painful
👉 Overly detailed (like… unnecessarily so)
👉 And yes… very heavy-handed
And let me be clear — I’m liberal, inclusive, and totally here for diverse characters.
But this felt less like storytelling and more like:
📋 “Let’s make sure we include absolutely everything.”
It didn’t feel natural. It felt forced. And it constantly pulled me out of the story.
Add that to pacing issues, and I was honestly struggling to stay engaged the entire time 😴
⚠️ Spoiler Warning — FULL Plot Breakdown Ahead
We’re diving into EVERYTHING — including the ending.
🐉 Full Plot Summary (With Actual Context This Time 😅)
📍 Arthur, Gwen & The Setup (1989)
Arthur Oakes is a Black, academically driven college student with big dreams of following his father’s legacy to Oxford. He’s thoughtful, moral, and deeply empathetic… which makes what happens next even worse.
After being blackmailed by Jayne Nighswander, Arthur ropes in his tight-knit (and mostly wealthy) friend group:
Gwen Underfoot – his love interest, a working-class EMT-in-training who constantly wrestles with guilt and morality
Colin Wren – a wealthy, tech-savvy manipulator with a growing obsession with power
The McBride twins (Van & Donna) – complete opposites (more on them in a sec)
Allie Shiner – initially introduced as Van’s girlfriend, but far more complex than she seems
Instead of solving their problem like normal humans…
👉 they summon King Sorrow, a literal dragon-like entity that feeds on human suffering.
And yes — this goes exactly as badly as you’d expect.
😈 The Deal (AKA Their Lives Are Ruined)
King Sorrow isn’t just a one-time favor kind of demon.
👉 He requires annual human sacrifices.
So now this group of college friends becomes a rotating moral disaster committee deciding who lives and dies every year.
Arthur is HORRIFIED by what they’ve done. He carries the guilt heavily, constantly questioning whether any of this can be justified.
Meanwhile…
👀 Colin is already starting to see this as an opportunity.
✈️ Allie & Van (Let’s Actually Explain Them)
Allie Shiner is one of the most emotionally complex characters — she’s a lesbian struggling with internalized shame from her upbringing.
She ends up in a complicated dynamic with:
Van McBride – her well-meaning but flawed boyfriend, who knows about her sexuality but marries her anyway
Donna McBride – Van’s twin sister… and the person Allie actually has feelings for
Yeah. It’s messy.
During the plane incident, Allie boards a flight targeted by King Sorrow to stop a disaster.
👉 She’s forced to kill a cult leader mid-flight to save everyone onboard.
This is honestly one of the more intense and interesting parts of the book.
Van and Allie later marry, but it’s built on repression and guilt — which becomes important later.
💔 Van & Donna (The Twins Who Carry Trauma)
The McBride twins are basically opposites:
Van – progressive, sarcastic, and protective
Donna – angry, conservative, emotionally guarded, and deeply traumatized
Donna is haunted by the childhood abduction of her best friend, which fuels her rage and need for control.
When they’re captured by a shady organization (Thermopylae) investigating King Sorrow:
👉 Van sacrifices himself (dies by suicide) to save Donna.
It’s meant to be redemptive… but it’s also devastating.
Donna? She spirals further into anger and vengeance.
🧠 Colin Becomes the Worst
Let’s talk about Colin Wren.
At first, he’s just the rich, slightly odd friend.
By the end?
👉 Full-blown villain.
He uses technology, surveillance, and manipulation to control the group’s sacrifice decisions — often for his own gain.
And then…
👉 He murders Arthur.
Yes. THE Arthur.
With a magical sword.
Because he wants to keep control of King Sorrow.
At this point I was like… okay, so we’re just doing chaos now??
⚔️ Gwen Steps Up (Finally Some Direction)
After Arthur’s death, Gwen Underfoot becomes the emotional and moral center of the story.
She’s been struggling the entire time with guilt over the sacrifices, trying to make “better” choices (like choosing people already near death)… but realizing that doesn’t really fix anything.
Eventually, she decides:
👉 The only solution is to kill King Sorrow.
🔥 Final Battle & Ending (Brace Yourself)
The group discovers they can turn Arthur’s soul into a weapon (yes, still wild).
In the final showdown:
Donna sacrifices herself (her redemption arc)
Colin dies after messing with forces he can’t control
Gwen faces King Sorrow
And how does she defeat him?
👉 She tricks him into eating himself.
Because apparently he can’t stop once he starts.
I wish I were joking.
🤦♀️ And Then… That Ending
After ALL of this:
Another dragon might exist
More chaos is happening in the world
And Gwen basically says:
👉 “Yeah… someone else can handle that.”
…excuse me??
🙄 Why This Didn’t Work for Me
❌ Too Many Characters, Not Enough Connection
Even with all this backstory, it still felt crowded and emotionally distant.
❌ Pacing = Brutal
This book drags. A lot.
❌ Themes Overload
Guilt, identity, morality, power, trauma — all important, but it felt like too much at once.
❌ Heavy-Handed Messaging
Again — I agree with the values. I just didn’t like how it was executed.
❌ Unsatisfying Ending
After 800+ pages (feels like 1000+ pages)… that ending just didn’t land.
⭐ Final Rating: 1.5/5
This just wasn’t it for me.
I wanted depth, tension, emotional payoff…
Instead I got:
👉 exhaustion
👉 frustration
👉 and a lot of “wait, why are we still going?”
📚 Better Books to Try Instead 👀
If you want dark, thought-provoking, and actually engaging:
The Library at Mount Char – Scott Hawkins
NOS4A2 – Joe Hill (I’ve heard MUCH better things)
The Only Good Indians – Stephen Graham Jones
The Passage – Justin Cronin
A Head Full of Ghosts – Paul Tremblay
If you made it through this book… I’m genuinely impressed 😂
Tell me — did you love it, or were you also rage-skimming by the end??
Comments
Post a Comment