#183 in Horror
Desperation
- 624
- Pages
- about 11 h
- Reading time
- Locus Award for Best Horror Novel
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“Desperation” is among King’s more frightening novels, a small-town survival story that works on the nerves rather than through sheer brutality. Setting and characters linger long after the last page, and a strand of religious faith fits the plot instead of weighing on it. It runs past six hundred pages, yet readers report being held throughout. Those who prize polished prose over storytelling may be less taken with it.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Desperation is a horror novel by American author Stephen King. It was published in 1996 at the same time as its "mirror" novel, The Regulators, itself published under King's Richard Bachman pseudonym. It was also made into a TV film starring Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt and Steven Weber in 2006. The two novels represent parallel universes relative to one another, and most of the characters present in one novel's world also exist in the other novel's reality, albeit in different circumstances.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.3 across 334 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 69% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.4 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.9 | 17 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 7.2 | 317 | 95% |
Frequently asked
How long is Desperation?
It has 624 pages — longer than 86% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.3 and 7.4, closest to this book.
