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The 10 most OVERRATED Stephen King books - my toughest book special yet!

Dave Reads King (Dave Musson)

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It's time for another book special and this one comes courtesy of ‪@tdrdavies2‬the most OVERRATED Stephen King books!

Now, this was tough to come up with but plenty of fun too. I've gathered 10 Stephen King books I think could be overrated and will cover them in a spoiler-free fashion.

What books from Stephen King do YOU think are overrated? Let me know in the comments!

00:00 Intro
00:11 Welcome & context for this special
01:40 My overrated Stephen King books 10-2
10:01 My number 1 overrated Stephen King book
10:52 Outro
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20 Comments

@LusiveBod 2 years ago

There's a lot to like about King's books, but he needs a damned good editor and to spend a lot more time working out decent endings. It's very frustrating to read 1000+ pages and get to a weak finale.

@KOP1-z9v 2 years ago

Oh, agree about Needful Things. King took a premise and drove it into the ground. Thought it would never end.

@tdrdavies2 2 years ago

I forgot I threw that idea out there, so that was a nice surprise.🙂 I think I agree with all your choices. And yes, overrated doesn't mean bad. Two that I would add are: The Long Walk (I often see this in reader top tens and I just don't get it), and The Green Mile (take away the fact that it was serialized and had a memorable movie adaption, and I feel that there is not much too it.)

@thelarko16 2 years ago

Loving the recent up turn in content. I've reard30 of his novels and recently started at the beginning again but reading them all. Just finished Cujo which like yourself was my first King book.

Also really enjoyed the Stand 2nd time round, first time I wasn't mad on it. But finding I'm getting loads more out of the books I've read previously

@therubberman1997 2 years ago

I agree on The Stand. It’s still a great book to me because the journey was so epic, but I feel like the ending was fumbled hard. It left such a sour taste in my mouth that it moves down in the ranks below other King classics. I honestly can’t recommend the Stand because of how poorly the ending pays off.

What King did to some of our main characters was a travesty and really brought the story down. It was convoluted and didn’t make any sense.

@KOP1-z9v 2 years ago (edited)

I agree about The Stand. The ending was bad. And, wasn’t only one of them supposed to die in Vegas according to Mother Abigail? Yeah, Stu and Franny are just going to go back to Maine and grow their family because they don’t need doctors when they can read books about medicine! —-I do disagree about Skeleton Crew. Uncle Otto’s Truck, Survivor Type, and The Reach were also brilliant, imo. Not overrated and the best collection by far. SO, so much better than Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

@christianbank6994 2 years ago

Its fun seeing how people of the same fandom can like such diffrent parts of it. for me, for example, two of the most overrated books are The Dead Zone and The Shining. theyre fine books, but there are just so many i like more, and people always seem to praise these two and reccomend them to people for their first King read. I think if i had read The Shining as my first King book, it might have taken me a while to pick up the next.

@eliasisthegreatest 2 years ago

I agree with you on almost all of these. I felt Needful Things was very repetitive. I enjoyed the book overall but not one of my favorites. I also don’t quite understand the popularity of the Talisman. I almost gave up on this one. It felt like Stephen King was reveling in torturing Jack. I also agree with what you said about the Wizard and Glass. I know it’s most people’s favorite DT book but I didn’t feel like it added much to the overall story and I didn’t find the love story compelling. This was just one that I didn’t understand its popularity. The only one you mentioned which hurt was the Skeleton Crew. I can’t separate the phenomenal stories in this collection from the garbage. Granted there are quite a few not so great stories. To each their own. Thanks as always for the video!

@javaguy5783 2 years ago

You are 100% correct about the Stand. I love dystopian novels, and the Stand really disappointed me. The two most important characters that represent good and evil were not fleshed out much and the ending left a lot to be desired.

@hellebartelsen8208 2 years ago (edited)

I completely agree about Carrie, The Gunslinger, and Wizard and Glass. Carrie was the first King book I read, but I distinctly remember being underwhelmed when I reread it years later. Wizard and Glass I thought was boring to be honest. I agree about Skeleton Crew being a mixed bag. Personally, I've never understood why people think so highly of The Mist (novella or movie). I remember liking The Stand (which is due for a reread soon) but I've never understood why it appears on so many people's top 3 lists. My top 3 would probably look something like this: 3) The Stand 2) Carrie 1) Wizard and Glass.

@Toastishott 2 years ago

For me probably Needful Things. It's a really fun concept but the ending was so bad it just kinda ruins it. Its basically the dollars store version of It. "Let's all unite through the power of friendship and defeat the cosmic evil!" Except with none of the payoff, epicness, or heart of It.

@RevBarney_DanielEJacobs 2 years ago

I KNEW "The Stand" would be your number one, and that if fine, but I wanted poke at one of your reasons, when you said that you have a chance to start over and the good guys just start everything over, that was what King was pointing to as "this isn't what you should be doing" (Yea the ending is a bit naff)

@captaintripss 1 year ago

As a King fan, I read 20 of his books in a year and I have been trying to finish The Stand for 3 months, it got me in a reading slump as well. I am just unable to finish it.. great concept and villian, 200 pages left but I just started to find it boring

@victorpavymusic 2 years ago

Spot on about The Gunslinger. The first section is a great moody western piece in weirdland then it gets fantasy boring mess. Very pretentious and not very entertaining.
I read half of Skeleton Crew too long ago (In France the paperback edition was cut in two books one I read in my teens one I read less than ten years ago) but going through summaries of the stories on Wikipedia I can see how some of them are not that great. It’s maybe less consistent in fact than Everything’s Eventual that I am currently reading.
The Dark Half is for me the most obvious overrated King book I read. I was not really engaged by the story beyond its cool concept

@nigelmilner1514 1 year ago

First, great work, enjoyed the watch. 2nd , you know the saying, opinions are like assholes, no-one wants to see mine ( something like that)😂 . Let's justvsay I'm only pushing for all Holly and Fairy Tales books to top this list!!
How about a special on what Stephen King storys/characters have been the most influential on other works/people. How much has the stand influenced other dystopian work, did The Shining have an affect on any haunted house storys. Did Holly make people realise you can't throw shit at a wall and hope it sticks?
Anyway, thanks!!!

@michaelleuchtenberger434 2 years ago

The Shining ... I saw Kubrick's film first and have always been a big fan of it, so it's probably hard to rate the novel objectively. But I read it twice and both times found it a rather boring haunted house story. Still ok, but it's not even close to my favourite King books.

@Toby-rj4tm 2 years ago

🤐 For me, it’s Misery. Putting this out there, I love Annie Wilkes. She’s top tier for me. But I can’t stand Paul Sheldon (and don’t give much of a shit what happens to him). It’s also an example of King putting a story within a story when it isn’t exactly necessary. It shifts tone and I’m ADD. (By the time it’s over, the spell is broken).

@cassiemainella6515 2 years ago

The stand, the shinning, and wizard and glass ( after reading that I still haven't finished the series)
I love needful things

@therubberman1997 2 years ago

11/22/63 is my pick for most overrated. I thought it was so boring and draaagged for like 400 pages.

Opened up good good, ending was great, but everything in between just felt like filler. No big events happened until the climax. Love story was good but in terms of events that progressed the plot, there was nothing. Just school plays and sitting around stalking Oswald. Snooze fest. Unnecessarily long for what we got.

@TheFuryOfRussiaCB 2 years ago

I’d chuck forward Joyland and Duma Key, Joyland got way too distracted, even for a King book and the ending of Duma Key dragged what was a great book to that point down significantly