"Since you read Stephen King, you must be a freak because Stephen King is." NOT TRUE!

[rosematters]

Freaks Unite! oh wait here we all are already-lol! You can call me anything as long as I have a SK book to read. Maybe some of these name callers should try actually reading a book and realizing that everyone has different preferences. Take a hit and expand your mind

[debs319]

Well, I have to say that there have been so many times over the years that he has completely FREAKED me out! If I am sitting here, having just registered on the stephenking.com website then he must have impacted me in a pretty powerful way. I believe I've read just about everything and then something else comes along after a hiatus in our reader/writer relationship and I am jumping out of my skin again. Just finished reading Full Dark, No Stars which I started last night and barely breathed through. I don't know what freaks me out more, his imagination or my fascination with it. If I had to chose one word it would have to be compelling. I am compelled to continue, to know, to see.........even when I compellingly ask myself why the hell am I reading him again!?!?! As I finished reading today, I yelled and threw the book down on the sofa! How do you scream in writing? How do you express the freaked out nauseous feeling in your gut? The best is trying to explain that you're not freaked out by what you've read now that you've finished reading but to explain the fact that you're freaked out because the experience is over...........................oh to see through someone else's eyes, their imagination.....

[Tinahorve]

I was so glad to find this forum. With only a few "casual" Stephen King fans in my life, this is great. I do sometimes wonder what feeds the "dark side". He is such a magnificent story teller and that is what I tell people about his books. Always about the story.

[Evil Queen]

Hmmmm...So I'm a freak, eh??
That's fine by me....*Kissing my Evil Scepter* But let it be known that I'm an Evil Queen Freak!!...& will not stop until I get my Evil King!! Aha!ha!ha!ha!ha!....

[SamanthaS]

I've never been called a freak because I read SK. I've only had people make me feel like I'm stupid for liking him, as if I'm not an intelligent person because I don't read "more serious literature". Anyone else had this response?

[Ivan]

Probably i'm a freak i planned my next holiday this September to New England ( and i'm living in Alkmaar Holland). This will be my last big travel because i need an liver transplantation and we set this on hold/wait just to make this trip/vacation. So has anybody suggestions what we have to see, we will be visiting a lot of places King wrote about and be driving trough Maine for 3 weeks.
Maybe someone knows some nice things we havent thought of.
Ivan

[Connie Reader]

I have never, not that I recall anyway, felt anyone looked at me strangely because I read SK. Only my mom, but I was nine or ten and had she read IT, I KNOW she would have taken it away....heeheehehe...sneaky with the books, I got away with it. Also, considering she let my brother read Mist aloud during a black out, how could she take it away...
*veering back on course*
so, yeah, if it's a freak they see, it's a freeeeek I be. I'm a-okay with it. Maybe THEY are the freaks. The scared slow mutants who have crippled their imaginations. shame.

[flwrchld]

Ok, I really wanted to start my own thread but it seems there are too many others like this so here goes my gripe:

To help keep track of exactly what book I've read and in what order I decided to post a picture of that book as my facebook profile pic. I made an album called "What I'm reading" and the caption beneath each photo is the title of the book and the dates I read it. It's just different and something to actually remind me to not spend so much time on facebook each day. When I see that photo I think to myself, "geez, get off of here and do something with your life." OK... so now the crap begins...

"Ooooh, you know, reading SK books is a pathway to darkness." WTH? Is that a serious freakin comment? Have these people ever opened a book in their lives?

I got a message yesterday saying something to the effect that I've put myself in a position now to be burned at the stake! HOLY COW!! For reading?

I swear, I live around some of the most ignorant, illiterate people in the country; people who have never picked up a book in their lives and would really be accomplishing something if they could sound out a Dr. Seuss book and here they are telling me how I'm going to go to hell for reading Stephen King.

You look on their profile pages and where it lists their favorite book they either have, "The Bible," or "I don't read." Now I don't know about anyone else here but even the most plain written English version of The Bible is difficult to understand and you can't tell me that those yahoo's who state they only read the Bible have ACTUALLY read it (and understood it). I'm an avid reader and have read it, studied it, and still found myself lost.

I'm so mad I could spit fire (hmmm, maybe I am turning demonic ) that such an ignorant, moronic bunch of jackals would stoop so low as to send messages to me saying I should burn at the stake and go to hell.

I want to write them back and tell them that SK's books are so much more, that the characters he writes are deep, the stories are so much more than the title or the cover art. I want to tell them about how I had tears when I neared the end of Insomnia when reading certain names (characters from other books - Pet Sematary, Dark Tower) because the character and place connections between so many books are so strong and those connections can just reach out and grab your emotions. SK's books bring out every emotion in a person, but I get a lot of laughter. Some people see a movie or two and think blood and horror. The books have raw emotion.

I know it's useless to point out any of that to these people. They are a narrow-minded lot who will sit in their own little corner and never open a book (not even that Holy Bible they talk about... why? because they don't know how to read, not literally, but they can't understand the written word in a complex context).

Thanks for listening to me get this off my mind.
Love to you all!
Suzi

[Connie Reader]

I'd rather read the word of Kas-ka Gan over the word of "god" anyday.

[~Ally~]

Aww shucks flwrchld; there are many ignorant people in the world, but saying you deserve to be burned at the stake for reading King is ridiculous. If these people are supposed to be your friends--which I'm assuming since they have access to your FB page--then maybe you need to find new friends. They sound not only ignorant and extreme in their beliefs, but also dangerous in their thinking. Don't surround yourself with people like that.

Always remember you can come here to discuss your interest in King and his works--leave them to the delights of Facebook where they are free to update what they ate/drank and when they go to the toilet/restroom--but don't ever be made to feel ashamed for your choice of reading material. At least you are reading, and enjoying it, don't allow others to ruin that for you.