5 Stephen King Books You Need To Read More Than Once To Fully Appreciate

Since many of Stephen King’s novels are considered classics, it is hardly surprising that a lot of his books need to be read more than once for fans to truly understand their stories. Stephen King has been a consistent bestseller since his 1974 debut novel Carrie. The ensuing decades have seen him impress readers not just in the horror genre, but also in sci-fi, fantasy, and even crime thrillers.

As It‘s prequel It: Welcome to Derry proves, King has created an immersive fictional universe throughout his novels that can be endlessly revisited by fans looking for more insight into the author’s world. As such, it makes sense that books like The Shining, The Stand, It, and Carrie need to be read more than once to truly appreciate their place in the author’s canon. For fans who want to become King experts, these books are ones that merit more than a single read-through.

The Shining

On first reading, King’s 1977 novel The Shining is a fairly straightforward story of an alcoholic groundskeeper struggling to maintain his sanity while stranded in an empty haunted hotel with his family. The book’s story is gripping and unsettling, and Jack Torrance’s gradual breakdown is as scary as it is plausible. However, re-reading The Shining, it is hard not to end up reframing the story from the perspective of other characters.

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The book is also a coming-of-age story for Danny, Jack’s young son, who looks up to him at the beginning of The Shining and ends the novel with a better understanding of his psychic gift, but at the cost of losing his flawed father. It is also a disquieting story of Wendy, Jack’s wife, gradually realising that her husband’s patterns of abuse aren’t going to get better, and that she can’t keep their family together through sheer force of will, despite what she might hope.

The Stand

If The Shining deserves to be reread so readers can understand the perspective of each of its main characters, The Stand warrants a re-reading solely so fans can keep up with every character. This mammoth novel remains King’s biggest book, and its 1000+ page story introduces dozens of major characters in a complicated plot that involves a battle between good and evil after the end of the world.

A post-apocalyptic epic, The Stand mixes fantasy, character drama, horror, and even some elements of sci-fi into its knotty plot, so most fans will spend their first read-through just about managing to keep track of the characters and their fates. However, as The Stand’s upcoming movie adaptation comes together, it is worth revisiting the book to fully understand the Dickensian complexity of King’s most ambitious work, where the lives of countless characters intersect in more ways than one reading can appreciate.

From a Buick 8

There are a lot of reasons that readers might revisit their favourite King books, but From a Buick 8’s trippy story is the only one that might require a second read-through just so readers can understand what is going on. The book’s plot, what little of it there is, seemingly concerns a car that is secretly some sort of Lovecraftian monster, or possibly a sentient alien portal, or both.

The reason that even the book’s basic storyline is hard to pin down is that From a Buick 8 takes the form of a series of anecdotes and stories told by various characters, all of whom may be unreliable narrators. With no clear authorial voice to shape the story, From a Buick 8 is one of King’s most confounding books, and a rare King novel that requires more than one read just to understand what exactly is going on.

It

If the box office success of the It movies proves anything, it is that Stephen King’s iconic 1986 horror novel isn’t as challenging and surreal as From a Buick 8. Although its story spans decades and bounces between two timelines, It tells a relatively straightforward tale of a group of children who face off against a monstrous killer clown, then return to their hometown as adults when the entity returns.

However, readers still need to make it through this hefty book more than once to appreciate King’s subtle character work. The members of Loser’s Club are compelling protagonists on the first read-through, but the propulsive horror of their experiences is what keeps the reader voraciously flipping pages to the end. Upon a re-read, fans can gain a deeper appreciation for their well-etched interactions and believable relationships.

Carrie

Like It, Carrie tells a fairly straightforward story of a psychic teenage outcast using her emerging powers of telekinesis to wreak bloody revenge on the bullies who tormented her throughout high school. However, the book’s switch to epistolary storytelling, where reports from various narrators make up the bulk of its story, can be a surprise for first-time readers. This means that dedicated Stephen King fans should revisit his debut after their first reading to appreciate the plot outside of the writer’s technical trickery.