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A review by daisymaytwizell
The Regulators by Stephen King
4.0
Starts off absolutely bewildering, but the ancillary information helps you piece it together in quite a satisfying way as the story unfolds. Reminds me of Carrie's epistolary elements. The premise itself reminds me of Under the Dome, as a cross section of a population (in this case a neighbourhood block) struggles to survive a traumatic situation.
And of course, Tak reminds me heavily of the creature in The Outsider. And though I haven't read IT, Tak is pretty explicitly a Deadlights-esque being too.
Quite heavy on gore - it reminds me of a B-movie slasher story, which for me was an absolute blast, but if you want something more than creative and pacy kills than maybe I wouldn't recommend. The writing was so good though, there were multiple deaths and injuries that made me physically recoil a little.
Some notes: one character is actively racist, and is considered a piece of shit for it by everyone else, but I wouldn't say race and diversity is handled particularly sensitively elsewhere in the book either. As ever, sex has a weird tone in this book, and for women especially has a mostly unacknowledged but recurrent link to violence. Also also, the worst trigger warning for this book is its handling of an autistic character. Seth is really interesting, and most of hisnon-Tak behaviour seems accurate for a child with quite severe autism, but some of the language around it is awful. The novel outright states that there is a "normal" Seth beneath his condition, which pairs horribly with Seth's general state of being trapped in his own body while Tak controls it. Very derogatory presentation (though it's worth noting that none of Seth's caregivers feel that way about him, and even though they're excited to see him exhibit more neurological behaviour, they all love and care for him fiercely at every point).
All in all, I had a really good time reading this book and would recommend it, but with some significant content warnings on language.
Quite heavy on gore - it reminds me of a B-movie slasher story, which for me was an absolute blast, but if you want something more than creative and pacy kills than maybe I wouldn't recommend. The writing was so good though, there were multiple deaths and injuries that made me physically recoil a little.
Some notes: one character is actively racist, and is considered a piece of shit for it by everyone else, but I wouldn't say race and diversity is handled particularly sensitively elsewhere in the book either. As ever, sex has a weird tone in this book, and for women especially has a mostly unacknowledged but recurrent link to violence. Also also, the worst trigger warning for this book is its handling of an autistic character. Seth is really interesting, and most of his
All in all, I had a really good time reading this book and would recommend it, but with some significant content warnings on language.