'Something Wicked This Way Comes' by Ray Bradbury is a dark fantasy novel that follows the story of two young boys, Will and Jim, and Will's father as they encounter a sinister carnival that arrives in their small town. The carnival promises to fulfill people's deepest desires but at a sinister cost, leading to a battle between good and evil. Bradbury's writing style is described as poetic, lyrical, and mesmerizing, creating a vivid and eerie atmosphere that captures the reader's imagination. The book delves into themes of childhood, aging, regret, and the blurred lines between reality and fantasy.
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From The Publisher:
Few American novels written this century have endured in th heart and mind as has this one-Ray Bradbury's incomparable masterwork of the dark fantastic. A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show's smoke, mazes, and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes - and the stuff of nightmare.
Ratings (102)
Incredible (15) | |
Loved It (42) | |
Liked It (25) | |
It Was OK (17) | |
Did Not Like (1) | |
Hated It (2) |
Reader Stats (202):
Read It (110) | |
Currently Reading (3) | |
Want To Read (66) | |
Did Not Finish (2) | |
Not Interested (21) |
5 comment(s)
I really wanted to like this book. Truly I did. I read an excerpt from it on Amazon and thought it was charming, but about 30 pages in and charming quickly turned into irritating. The way Bradbury writes is just so confusing that half the time you really have no clue what's going on, and the other half you're bored to tears by his long, unnecessary, drawn out descriptions of the most pettiest things. Half way through I had to force myself to continue (it really wasn't that hard since the chapters were so short, so I simply read one a day).
But the characters were nice, well-rounded and all that good stuff that characters should be, and there were a few funny parts here and there. So if you're interested in the book, then go ahead and read it. You just might like it. But I'd recommend getting it from the library first before buying a copy.
i love bradbury’s style of writing and how lovable his characters are
very creative (my favorite way to describe this)
I picked this book up bc my local library didn’t have any other Ray Bradbury books on their shelves (very small military base library). I am easily scared and very jumpy but this book was just enough spooky to get adrenaline going and really had me diving headfirst into the story. My heart raced with the boys running, I dodged attacks from the bad guys, I hid behind Dad as he protected the kids.
DNF @36%
Reading this novel feels like being assaulted by the English language. It's probably not actually written in a stream of consciousness style, but it's at least somewhat adjacent, and so heavily reliant on metaphor that it takes work just to figure out what's going on most of the time. Surreal nonsense, all of it. I can respect the writing style, but I don't particularly care for it. I don't find it especially atmospheric (lists of things do not an atmosphere make—it has great breadth but little depth), I don't care about the characters, and I have no desire to read further.
I don't think it's a bad book, but I don't think it's for me.
I really didn't expect to get me to finish this book. But nevertheless my determination won. Good for me!
A little over 10 years ago I read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and it wasn't exactly what I expected. I'm not a fan of this book. But I decided to give the author one more chance. After reading
Something Wicked This Way Comes, I have no doubt that his works are not for me.
Very rarely am I able to admire someone's writing style so much that I pay no attention to anything else. And Bradbury's work is just for such people. As for me, his lyrical style irritated me a bit. I found it overstuffed and exaggerated. As if everything just had to have some deeply hidden symbolism and a second meaning.
I wasn't really into the plot either. But I don't like horror stuff. However, I'm not sure if this book can be considered a typical horror. I don't think I have read enough books in this genre to be able to compare and decide. Also, I am far from genderizing the books, but in this case I felt that it is more of a story for boys. As a woman, I felt a bit excluded from this mystical boyish world.
I do not plan to read any more books by this author. They are not for me.
What can you read after
Something Wicked This Way Comes?
About the Author:
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was the author of more than three dozen books, including Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, as well as hundreds of short stories. He wrote for the theater, cinema, and TV, including the screenplay for John Huston's Moby Dick and the Emmy Award-winning teleplay The Halloween Tree, and adapted for television sixty-five of his stories for The Ray Bradbury Theater. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, and numerous other honors.
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