As the month of horror has arrived, you must be excited to pick up thrillers that will make your pumpkin spice lattes a lot more salivating. Speaking of thrillers, I couldn’t help but recommend you, Stephen King, Misery, which might instantly steal your heart (and a spot on your bookshelf). That is if you haven’t already read and loved it.

“She was crazy but he needed her. Oh I am in so much trouble he thought, and stared blindly up at the ceiling as the droplets of sweat began to gather on his forehead again.”

Misery is the story of a famous author, Paul Sheldon, who gets rescued/kidnapped by a nurse named Annie Wilkes. She takes a badly injured and unconscious Paul to her house which is located in a remote area of Colorado. Annie also claims to be “a number one fan” of Paul’s novels written about Misery (a lead fictional female character in Paul’s novels). As he slowly starts regaining his strength, Annie’s episodes of nervous breakdown become increasingly unpredictable and terrifying.

As a reader, you see Paul, a self-assured man, being whittled down to becoming Annie’s handicapped victim. During his downward spiral, he also realises the importance of simplicities of life which he once took for granted. I loved Paul’s introspection of his situation while being at Annie’s mercy. On the other hand, Annie’s character is more complex than what meets the eye. On the surface level, she might seem like a woman who has lost her marbles. But as you take a deep dive, Annie proves herself to be smarter than the reader gives her credit for.

It is believed, Stephen King largely drove inspiration from his real-life situation to carve Paul Sheldon’s character. As, in the book, Paul feels trapped because of hype around Misery, Mr King, too, felt constricted to the horror genre.