If you audiobook, get this in audiobook form. It adds a ton to the telling, I feel.

Somehow I missed this in my Stephen King binges. I quite liked it, though. It's a bit weird in the telling . It's done as a police interview. The audiobook adds appropriate sounds in response to things Dolores asks for during the interview, which is cute without interfering in what's going on.

The character work is great, but there's not a lot of supernatural if that is your King thing. It's normally mine, but this was a good read despite.

The "mystery" is less whether murder happened (she admits from the first that it did), but how and why and how many, and watching things unspool as she talks is compelling.

With the audiobook, the narration is perfect. I started it and felt like I was listening to a woman in a small town telling me a story. I finished the whole thing in a day, which should probably tell you either how good it was or a lot about my reading habits. Maybe both?

King does not get in his own way in this--I don't get the feeling of this being "written" so much as "transcribed" (or, in the audiobook version, like I am actively listening to a taped confession)

The only answer to "is this super dark or funny" is "yes," oddly enough. It's balanced well that the dark moments are sprinkled with funny stuff, but it does go some places a lot of people may not want to go, and for good reason. And I'm not just talking about murder. It's handled very well, I think, but keep an eye out for domestic abuse AND sexual abuse of a minor if that's not something you want to delve into.

As with all King stuff, there is at least the barest hint of the supernatural AND connections to his other books. They're not required reading (I didn't read the big one, but I recognized it was A Reference), but, as with all of King's writing, it is one big universe and the deeper you've delved the more you get out of things.

I'm glad I finally got around to it and it's inspiring me to pick up some more of the King books I've overlooked.