"Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers."
~Hans Christian Anderson
Charlie Reade is a seventeen-year-old kid who seems to be the boy next door. Charlie and his father have known their fair share of heartbreak, with Charlie's mother being killed ten years ago in a hit-and-run. Charlie has grown up having to take care of himself, his father, and trying to keep afloat through high school.
However, Charlie's life is about to change when he meets his older neighbor, Mr. Bowditch.
Mr. Bowditch lives in the supposed haunted house on the hill. The house that even Charlie's dad and his friends have grown up saying is haunted. Yet, Charlie swallows his fear and helps Bowditch when the old man falls off a ladder. He meets and falls in love with Bowditch's aging dog, Radar, a Saint Bernard who knows more than most dogs.
Through the course of helping Bowditch, Charlie comes to discover the old man has a secret all his own, that could lead to the end of not only our world, but the world discovered through a shed in Bowditch's backyard that Bowditch and Radar have frequented quite often throughout their years. But Charlie will soon discover the battle of good and evil has been waiting on him -- waiting and wanting the prince to save them all.
But Charlie is not a Disney prince, he's a seventeen-year-old high school athlete who has a crush on the popular girl. He didn't know the world below ours was counting on him to save them and the last of the royals. He just wanted to save Radar a little while longer. But when the people of the other world explain that they've been waiting on him, Charlie must decide whether he can be the prince of their fairy tale, or if he will die trying.
I ran to the bookstore the day "Fairy Tale" premiered and I was the first one to buy it according to the Barnes & Noble Starbucks checkout (shout-out to the baristas; we had such a great conversation about how they can't wait to read it either. It's highly recommended from me!)
During the reading process, I grew quickly attached to Charlie and Bowditch. Bowditch reminded me of how I imagine Stephen King's personality is and it led to a theory of mine: This is is last book.
Don't quote me on that -- nobody knows what the man is thinking and I hope it is not the last book we receive from King. I hope we get a lot more stories from the King of Horror. But the way the book was written, the way it ends, it feels very much like a memoir, but not of Charlie. A memoir of King.
"Early in the pandemic, King asked himself: "What could you write that would make you happy? As if my imagination had been waiting for the question to be asked, I saw a vast deserted city - deserted but alive. I saw the empty streets, the haunted buildings, a gargoyle head lying overturned in the street. I saw smashed statues (of what I didn't know, but I eventually found out). I saw a huge, sprawling palace with glass towers so high their tips pierced the clouds. Those images released the story I wanted to tell."
"Fairy Tale" takes readers on a journey to another world below ours that may mirror our world, but it is nothing like it. Charlie is the hero of the story, but you can't help but think he had to grow up too fast for a seventeen-year-old. The book seemed to take bits of every popular fairy tale and tie them together with a neat red, blood-stained ribbon.
A true fairy tale for adults, "Fairy Tale" takes readers on a journey of life and gently reminds readers that time cannot turn back, but you can make time count every day.
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