Thinner
- 318
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Thinner” draws real dread from a simple, cruel idea: a curse that makes a guilty man’s body waste away beyond his control. The horror is physical, and what chills is watching the protagonist lose command of his own flesh. Some readers find the folksy, joke-hunting narration tiresome well before the end. One nasty idea, followed all the way through: that is the whole of its appeal.
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
Thinner is a horror novel by American author Stephen King, published in 1984 by NAL under King's pseudonym Richard Bachman. The story centers on morbidly obese lawyer Billy Halleck, who, driving carelessly, kills an old Romani woman while she is crossing the street. He escapes legal punishment due to his connections, but the woman's 106-year-old father then curses Halleck to physically waste away, and the lawyer must find a way to undo the curse. King, who was overweight at the time of the novel's writing, created the novel's outline following an annual medical examination.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 6.9 across 420 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 74% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.1 | 37 | 9% |
| Google Books | 7.0 | 10 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 6.9 | 373 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is Thinner?
It has 318 pages — shorter than 74% 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
The same shelf — Horror — and a score of 7.1, the closest to this book.
