Abandoned by Booklikes

As a longtime Stephen King fan I was hesitant to read anymore about the Dark Tower series. The last novel in the series broke me (I will not get into here since I am sure many of you have read all of the books) so when I saw that a new novel was out that took place in between Wizard and the Glass and Wolves of the Calla I just rolled my eyes. However, my curiosity got the best of me and I finally broke down and ordered the novel.

I have to say that I was so happy to just be reading about our little gang of gunslingers again all together and working toward their common goal. Roland was Roland, Susannah and Eddie still happy and in love and Jake and Oy.

You have all of the characters still feeling regret about what happened in Lud and them drawing ever closer to the Tower. We have the group due to a sudden shift in temperature having to hole up and take shelter in an empty town and due to that we have Roland telling them all a story about what happened to him after he returned from Mejis. Roland and Jaime are sent to deal with a "Skin Man" who is devouring people in a town called Debaria.

I have to say that it was great to once again read about what happened when Roland was a young gunslinger. There were some allusions to prior books such as Desperation and Tak and the ini that too place in that story (we all know Stephen King likes to connect all of his stories together) so that was a nice little Easter egg. However, the story within the story (the Wind Through the Keyhole) I found rather boring. I read it and found myself rushing through it to just get back to what happened to Roland and Jamie.

I really did enjoy this novel but all it made me long for at the end was our ka-tet back together again and for a different ending to the Dark Tower.