Misery
Stephen King

Paul Sheldon, author of a bestselling series of historical romances, wakes up one winter day in a strange place, a secluded farmhouse in Colorado. He wakes up to unspeakable pain (a dislocated pelvis, a crushed knee, two shattered legs) and to a bizarre greeting from the woman who has saved his life: "I'm your number one fan!"
Annie Wilkes is a huge ex-nurse, handy with controlled substances and other instruments of abuse, including an axe and a blowtorch. A dangerous psychotic with a Romper Room sense of good and bad, fair and unfair, Annie Wilkes may be Stephen King's most terrifying creation. It's not fair, for example, that her favorite character in the world, Misery Chastain, has been killed by her creator, as Annie discovers when Paul's latest novel comes out in paperback. And it's not good that her favorite writer has been a Don't-Bee and written a different kind of novel, a nasty novel, the novel he has always wanted to write, the only copy of which now lies in Annie's angry hands.
Because she wants Paul Sheldon to be a Do-Bee, she buys him a typewriter and a ream of paper and tells him to bring Misery back to life. Wheelchair bound, drug dependent, locked in his room, Paul doesn't have much choice. He's an entertainer held captive by his audience. A writer in serious trouble. But writers have weapons too...

Most people are already familiar, at least in some way, with this novel. Chances are, it's through the ever popular film version with Kathy Bates amazing performance as Annie. And while the film hold true to the theme and feeling of the novel, there are a lot of scenes (like the hobbling one) that are different in the novel. Because when reading your imagination takes over more so than when watching a film, the novel is much more terrifying than the movie ever could hope to be.

This deals with both the psychological terror that comes along with being trapped like a rat in the house of someone who is truly crazy and obsessive and not knowing what will come next or what will set that person's anger off. And also the terror that comes with things like having one's foot cut off at the ankle and one's thumb removed just because you made a single misstep and angered your "host".

As thrillers go, this one is the standard to use when writing or reading one. This is a perfect novel and knows when to use both the subtle and the grotesque to freak out its readers.

There's a reason that most people know of this novel and its story even if they have never read it, and that's because it's the gold standard when it comes to the thriller.

I would highly recommend this novel.

My rating: Five out of five snails.