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View Full Version : Bracket #7: Rose Madder (1995)



mae
03-22-2010, 07:43 AM
Rose Madder, 1995
http://www.thedarktower.org/gallery/data/510/medium/Rose_Madder_face.jpg

Please vote for Rose Madder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Madder_(novel)) using the following scale:

5: I loved it
4: It was good
3: Average
2: Only so-so
1: I didn't like it

If you haven't read this book yet, please vote Never Read. Feel free to discuss your votes in this thread.

Sam
03-22-2010, 08:45 PM
This one confused me at the end. It was a great and enthralling story, and I would have given it a 4 if it hadn't been for the fact that I had to read the ending about six times to get it, and even today I'm still not sure I completely understood it. 3.

Kronz
03-22-2010, 08:53 PM
I abstain, though I've read about 1/3 of the book. This is the only King novel I put down, started over later and put back down. I just can't finish it, or even get it properly started. Spousal abuse just makes me feel awful. OK so that's the point, maybe, but it is hard to relate to when you come from a background where no one you know ever beat their wives. This book is on my 2010 to-read list though, even if each page takes me ten minutes (I tend to wander off if I am not totally sold on a book).

Jean
03-22-2010, 11:47 PM
4 from bears

mae
03-23-2010, 06:10 AM
A 5 from me. I loved it. Relentless and non-stop, like a classic King book, only written in the 1990s. One of my all-time favorites. It constantly breaks my heart it's generally not well received.

pathoftheturtle
03-23-2010, 11:52 AM
Sure, pablo, it has good pacing, but it's brain-dead.

Daghain
03-23-2010, 12:28 PM
I gave it a 3. Maybe when I get around to rereading it that will improve (maybe not!) but it just wasn't that memorable to me.

divemaster
03-23-2010, 05:24 PM
4. I liked it!

gsvec
03-23-2010, 07:06 PM
I gave it a 3. Maybe when I get around to rereading it that will improve (maybe not!) but it just wasn't that memorable to me.
Ditto.

mae
03-24-2010, 04:58 AM
I think this was my first King hardcover, or any hardcover I bought for myself for that matter. I just love this book. One of these days I definitely need to re-read it.

mikeC
03-24-2010, 06:10 AM
I really don't remember anything about this story except for a small DT reference was in it.
I think at this point I was really fed up with these slightly entertaining bland books that he was pumping out instead of releasing DT4.
4 years had gone by and nothing but obscure references in Insomnia, I was getting irritated.
I thought about revisting it but I'm not sure its worth my time.

BROWNINGS CHILDE
03-24-2010, 05:25 PM
I abstain, though I've read about 1/3 of the book. This is the only King novel I put down, started over later and put back down. I just can't finish it, or even get it properly started. Spousal abuse just makes me feel awful. OK so that's the point, maybe, but it is hard to relate to when you come from a background where no one you know ever beat their wives. This book is on my 2010 to-read list though, even if each page takes me ten minutes (I tend to wander off if I am not totally sold on a book).

My story is similar to Kronz's. This is the ONLY SK book that I have started and stopped without finishing. I only made it 100 pages or so. I was just not interested. I voted never read, but I have a feeling that it would earn no more than a 3 after reading completely.

mae
03-24-2010, 07:25 PM
How come, BC? I felt it was a very interesting story, and a very unusual one, told very unusually. And I always thought it could make a cool movie.

BROWNINGS CHILDE
03-24-2010, 09:43 PM
How come, BC? I felt it was a very interesting story, and a very unusual one, told very unusually. And I always thought it could make a cool movie.


Well, I can't say without having completed the book. All I can say is I did not feel compelled to turn the pages anymore, which is VERY unusual for me. I have only stopped reading 3 or 4 books ever. And this was one of them. I should, and will, pick it up again at some point. I make no promises as to when, however, as I have a limited amount of time that I am willing to dedicate to something that I have tried, unsuccessfully, to read once.

Also, I am reading Lisey's Story right now, and I am having trouble pounding my way through that (I actually started a reread of Salems Lot after about 30 pages of LS, I am now almost done with Salems Lot and still only about 100 pages into LS) so that might be all the substandard SK I can stomach for awhile.

Jean
03-25-2010, 12:34 AM
I abstain, though I've read about 1/3 of the book. This is the only King novel I put down, started over later and put back down. I just can't finish it, or even get it properly started. Spousal abuse just makes me feel awful. OK so that's the point, maybe, but it is hard to relate to when you come from a background where no one you know ever beat their wives. This book is on my 2010 to-read list though, even if each page takes me ten minutes (I tend to wander off if I am not totally sold on a book).

My story is similar to Kronz's. This is the ONLY SK book that I have started and stopped without finishing. I only made it 100 pages or so. I was just not interested. I voted never read, but I have a feeling that it would earn no more than a 3 after reading completely.

That's what happened between bears and Green Mile...



Also, I am reading Lisey's Story right now, and I am having trouble pounding my way through that (I actually started a reread of Salems Lot after about 30 pages of LS, I am now almost done with Salems Lot and still only about 100 pages into LS) so that might be all the substandard SK I can stomach for awhile.
I read about ten books while plodding through LS.
And about twenty books while plodding through The Eyes of the Dragon.
Since I am, technically, still in the middle of Green Mile, it has by now set a record of about a thousand...

BROWNINGS CHILDE
03-25-2010, 12:38 AM
I abstain, though I've read about 1/3 of the book. This is the only King novel I put down, started over later and put back down. I just can't finish it, or even get it properly started. Spousal abuse just makes me feel awful. OK so that's the point, maybe, but it is hard to relate to when you come from a background where no one you know ever beat their wives. This book is on my 2010 to-read list though, even if each page takes me ten minutes (I tend to wander off if I am not totally sold on a book).

My story is similar to Kronz's. This is the ONLY SK book that I have started and stopped without finishing. I only made it 100 pages or so. I was just not interested. I voted never read, but I have a feeling that it would earn no more than a 3 after reading completely.

That's what happened between bears and Green Mile...



Also, I am reading Lisey's Story right now, and I am having trouble pounding my way through that (I actually started a reread of Salems Lot after about 30 pages of LS, I am now almost done with Salems Lot and still only about 100 pages into LS) so that might be all the substandard SK I can stomach for awhile.
I read about ten books while plodding through LS.
And about twenty books while plodding through The Eyes of the Dragon.
Since I am, technically, still in the middle of Green Mile, it has by now set a record of about a thousand...

That makes me feel a little better. I actually feel a little guilty. Like I am cheating on LS, thats pretty f'd up I know. But I am usually pretty monogamous with my reading.

mae
03-26-2010, 04:59 AM
I haven't read Lisey's Story yet, unfortunately, but this book is excellent, I'm telling you! :) And it's rather short, so it goes pretty briskly. At least that's what I thought, and I'm a slow reader, too. Rosie is a great character, and Norman is a dark and twisted villain. The characters and the settings were extremely lucid and believable. This would've been straight drama if not for the supernatural elements which were weird and cool.

This book has no chance to get into Round 2, but hopefully it can improve its overall standing after finishing 44th in 2009 :cry:

divemaster
03-27-2010, 06:38 AM
Here's a thought...

This book, plotwise and style, is actually closer to a Dean Koontz novel than anything else King has written. Woman in peril, being chased by deranged angry man, throw in some fantastical elements...that's very "Koontz-like."

I've read a lot of Koontz and I like him better than some others here (for what he is, which is a fairly one-dimensional writer of brain candy), so perhaps those elements are putting some folks off Rose Madder.

Having said that, I gave this book a 4 because King can write circles around Koontz when it comes to character. Rose Madder has some great characters, and the story, for me anyhow, pulls the reader along pretty well.

Jean
03-27-2010, 08:10 AM
Here's a thought...

This book, plotwise and style, is actually closer to a Dean Koontz novel than anything else King has written. Woman in peril, being chased by deranged angry man, throw in some fantastical elements...that's very "Koontz-like."

I've read a lot of Koontz and I like him better than some others here (for what he is, which is a fairly one-dimensional writer of brain candy), so perhaps those elements are putting some folks off Rose Madder.
Don't know about folks, but what you said will certainly make bears turn to Koontz once again, with renewed interest...

alinda
03-27-2010, 10:36 AM
Perhaps to a really intensely loud colored paperback? :wtf:
Seriously it was one of my favorite Koontz stories ever.
( I think the decription above is spot on by the way.)

Jean
03-27-2010, 11:00 AM
Perhaps to a really intensely loud colored paperback? :wtf:
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gif

mae
03-29-2010, 09:05 AM
The poll has closed. Rose Madder has earned a FAS (final average score) of 3.355932203 or 67.12%, placing 4th in this bracket. It will not be moving on to Round 2. In 2009, Rose Madder placed 5th (in Bracket #8) with a FAS of 3.464285714, so it lost 0.108353511 (-3.13%) this time.