By now, you’ve probably heard of Stephen King’s thoughts on everything from Donald Trump (a favorite talking point of his) to billionaire Elon Musk and even Russian president Vladimir Putin.
What you might’ve missed, however, was the prolific author’s opinions on young adult novels, specifically ones about glitter-faced heartthrobs and a dystopian future where children fight to the death. That’s right, King’s comments about Twilight and The Hunger Games have resurfaced, and it’s clear he shares as much disdain for the wildly popular book series’ as he does for the former president.
The Carrie author made the comments during a 2013 interview with The Guardian, around the time that both books had already received movie adaptations, and at the height of our collective Team Edward or Team Peeta fascination (I’ll personally never forgive Gale). Speaking on whether the Twilight book could be considered horror — the genre he is most prolific in — King said the books are “really not about vampires and werewolves.”
“They’re about how the love of a girl can turn a bad boy good.” Of course, one could argue that Stephenie Meyer, who authored all novels in the Twilight series, never set out to create a horror franchise, though anyone who has seen Kristen Stewart’s acting might beg to differ. Referring to Meyer, King said he “read Twilight and didn’t feel any urge to go on with her,” a criticism which he also extended to Suzanne Collins’ dystopian trilogy.
“I read The Hunger Games and didn’t feel an urge to go on,” King said, before comparing the book series to his own 1982 novel, The Running Man. That book was first published under King’s former pseudonym Richard Bachman, and is set in a dystopian future in which the participants of a reality show must evade a team of hitmen.
“[The Hunger Games] is not unlike The Running Man,” King said, “which is about a game where people are actually killed and people are watching: a satire on reality TV.” While King’s seeming aversion to two horror-adjacent young adult novels might be somewhat surprising, his thoughts on Fifty Shades of Grey might be a little more predictable.
That book series — written by E. L. James and based around a fan-fic inspired by Twilight — was seemingly inescapable around the time of King’s interview, and the author said he “felt no urge to go on” after finishing the first installment. “They call it mommy porn, but it’s not really mommy porn,” King said, adding that the Fifty Shades series “is highly charged, sexually driven fiction for women who are, say, between 18 and 25.”
King summarized his thoughts by adding that he “wouldn’t say” we were in the golden age of horror, since he couldn’t “think of any books right now that would be comparable to The Exorcist.” Anyone whose read Fifty Shades of Grey might believe it to be just as squeamish as demonically possessed girl, but with so many iconic novels (and upcoming film adaptations) to his name, we’ll just have to take King’s word for it.
Published: Sep 15, 2024 08:13 pm