I'll kick off by saying I liked From a Buick 8 a lot. It isn't a brilliant book, but I had a good time reading it. It had the feeling of coming home to me. Coming home to the style of Stephen King that I fell in love with all those years whenever when. Eminently readable, head far from up its own arse but still able to grab you by the throat, punch you in the gut or compel you to lay the book down and smile with a faraway look and say "shit, he nailed it."
The Stephen King I love always feels real, even though his stories take you further and further into the unreal. He's someone whose stories can be read without an overt, critical dissection of the themes and subtexts because there's enough satisfaction in just reading the fucking thing. The subtexts and themes come through and sink in without being mined in fear of having missed something because the book was so dry or listless.
As I said, the book isn't brilliant. Nowhere near his best, but it got me revved up. (I actually got a couple of sentences on before I came back to apologise for that pun). There were bits I had to force myself to keep reading (the autopsy being one) because the dread was rising.
Long story short, fun and satisfying.
