Revival by Stephen King

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Revival
by Stephen King
(Audio)

Wow. This book spanned about 50 years of a characters life. When Jamie meets Reverend Jacobs for the first time, he is a boy of about 5 or 6 years old. The reverend is an interesting, creative, and unique man who has a hobby of experimenting with electricity. When he uses a crude device to heal Jamie's brother's vocal cords to get him speaking agian, Jamie is impressed by him. When the reverend loses his family in a tragic car accident and gives a "terrible sermon" he leaves town and Jamie thinks he'll never see the man again.

But that was just the beginning of the ways Jamie's and Reverend Jacobs' lives will intertwine throughout the years. Jamie grows up to be a druggie rocker and coincidentally just so happens to stumble across the reverend again when Jacobs is using electricity to impress folks at a carnival with what appears to be a wondrous, magical camera. Jamie's sick in more ways than one and Jacobs takes him in, cars for him, and heals him for good using one of his experiments. There's an awesome reference at this point in their lives to Joyland, a Stephen King novel I earread just a few months ago, so that was a pretty cool nod. Jacobs gets Jamie a job out west at the music studio of a friend and they part ways.

That's where most stories would end, but not this one. Oh no. This is a Stephen King story after all. Jamie sees the reverend again when the man is working... check out the name of the book... yes, you guessed it, a revival show. He's using electricity to heal the ill and wounded and claiming it's God's power. But it's a power he doesn't fully understand. And it's one that comes with some serious side effects that include suicide for some of his patients.

When they meet up another times, everything is finally revealed--the true nature of the power and what it reveals. And Jamie, whose life was saved by this man, is caught right in the middle of it all in a terrible, guilty way. It's almost unbearable to watch this book play out, but just like a car accident, you can't look away. The horrible reveal was actually a little sillier than I'd expected. I was a little horrified and a lot amused. But then shit definitely got real and I screamed out loud at a few of the things that happened in the aftermath. Once again i forgot: this is a Stephen King novel. That means no one is safe.

There were some quiet moments of this book, and plenty of times I couldn't believe I wasn't further along. It seemed like the story could have ended a dozen times. But then huge things would happen, huge twists would come, and I was shocked time and time again by the beauty and horror of the story. This was definitely Stephen King at his best with characters and concept, even if the end climax of the story was a bit of a let-down for me and the resolution of the story made me scream and flail and question everything I knew about life. How's that for powerful? I really enjoyed this experience I got to go on with this book.