The 22nd Annual Book Report Competition For Secondary School Students
Extensive Reading Section
Title:
Publisher :
Misery
Penguin Readers
Author : Stephen King
No. of words : 438 words
The Famous writer, Paul Sheldon, was fed up with his best-selling books – the Misery
series, a romantic story about Misery Chastain, a woman in the 19th century. He was
determined to end the story with Misery’s death and tried something new. He was
writing a new novel, ‘Fast Cars’. After he finished it, he drove all the way to Los
Angeles and unfortunately came across a big thunderstorm, he crashed his car and fell
unconscious. When he woke up, he noticed that his leg was broken and instead of
being sent to hospital, he was rescued by an experienced nurse named Annie Wilkes,
who lived in a desolate suburb and claimed she was his number one super fan. She
was deeply obsessed by the Misery’s series and was about to read his latest Misery
novel. At the beginning, she was nice: fed him, bathed him and gave his Novril to
relieve his pain. But when she found out that ‘Misery’s Child’ was the last book and
Misery died at the end, she was furious and started torturing Paul. She had to make
him miserable since he did it to her in the first place. She had nothing but the power to
make you feel better or painful as hell… can Paul escape from Annie and leave this
house alive?
It is quite surprising that Stephen King wrote a book which was not related to
horrifying ghosts, but the darkness of human mind. When things are out of our
expectations, we may lose control. Just like Annie, she didn’t like Paul’s new piece
and refused to believe that the story of Misery was over; she then decided to make
Paul suffer in pain. It could be too exaggerating, you might say. The truth is we may
blame others when we have a bad time, just like Annie, and this will hurt the feelings
of our friends and family. Although I agree that Annie was insane and we could hardly
forgive what she did, she was only a tragic character. As I see, she had neither friends
nor relatives and therefore I am quite sure she didn’t know how to interact with
people. Somehow she didn’t know how to cope with difficulties and accept the reality
too. Finally her personality put herself and others in pain. I think people should not
blame others for making their lives miserable. After all, we can live the lives we are
living or live the lives we like. For some reasons, I think that Annie thought herself
was Misery; having led a boring life, she wanted to have an adventure or a romance
like Misery.
Perhaps it is a book written by Stephen King that everyone is expecting him to write a
ghost story. But it turns out his ‘Misery’ wasn’t. Sarcastic, isn’t? Anyway, it is a
terrific book that creates tension and spooky atmosphere, which I dare not read at
night!