Stephen King’s Fairy Tale: A Neophyte King Reader’s Review

When a cousin of mine recently recommended Stephen King’s Fairy Tale with the intensity of someone sharing sacred texts, I’ll admit I was skeptical. Sure, I’d devoured The Dark Tower series over a few obsessive months a couple of years ago, and I’d read Carrie back in college (who hasn’t?), but I wouldn’t exactly call myself a King devotee. Oh, and I listened to Billy Summers on Audible in 2024, but was less than impressed. I’m more of a horror anthology and indie horror novel kind of gal—give me a good creepy short story collection or a debut author exploring dark fantasy, and I’m happy as a clam.

But my cousin persisted, rambling on about a magical world, a parallel universe, a haunted city, and that this dark fairy tale might just make me shed a tear, etc. So I eventually relented. Turns out my intuition had been flat out wrong.

Fairy Tale is a gorgeous, sprawling, emotionally devastating fantasy novel for about 400 pages. And then it kind of… isn’t. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about why this 608-page beast of a book had me staying up until 3 AM on a work night, ugly-crying over a German Shepherd, and why—despite my issues with the ending—I’m already eyeing The Eyes of the Dragon and The Talisman on my bookshelf.

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: Full Plot Synopsis Ahead ⚠️

If you haven’t read Fairy Tale yet and want to go in fresh, skip to the “My Review” section below. But honestly? King’s books, at least the ones I’ve read, are never really about the destination—they’re about the journey, and knowing what happens won’t diminish the experience.

What’s It About? The Full Story

The Setup: Trauma, Dogs, and Mysterious Old Men

This is the story of Charlie Reade, a seventeen-year-old boy carrying a heavy load for someone his age. When he was seven, Charlie’s mother died in a tragic accident, and his dad spiraled into alcoholism. Charlie essentially became the parent, taking care of both himself and his father in their small Illinois town of Sentry’s Rest.

Everything changes when Charlie hears cries for help coming from a creepy house on top of a big hill—home to the neighborhood recluse, a cranky and elderly man by the name of Mr. Howard Bowditch, and his aging German Shepherd, Radar. Mr. Bowditch has fallen from a ladder and broken his leg. Charlie, driven partly by a promise he’d made to God during his father’s recovery and partly because he’s genuinely good, steps up to help.

He starts visiting daily, caring for both the reclusive old man and his beloved dog. And Charlie falls hard for Radar—that deep, irrational love you have for a dog that transcends logic. When Bowditch dies from a heart attack at 120 years old (yes, you read that right), he leaves Charlie a cassette tape with an impossible secret: there’s a portal to a parallel world hidden in the locked shed in his backyard.

Welcome to Empis: Where Fairy Tales Have Teeth

The world beyond the portal is called the land of Empis, and it’s everything a fairy tale kingdom should be—if fairy tales were written by someone with the descriptive skills of Ray Bradbury and a penchant for the cosmic horrors of H.P. Lovecraft. Empis is dying, literally gray and drained of color by an ancient curse.

The world features two moons named Bella and Arabella, a vast deserted city that feels haunted even when it’s not, and a magical sundial that can reverse aging. That sundial is how Bowditch maintained his long life, and it’s Charlie’s only hope to save Radar, who’s ancient and failing.

Charlie makes the journey with Radar, navigating through the decaying city of Lilimar to reach the magic sundial in an abandoned stadium surrounded by haunted buildings. But getting there means sneaking past Hana the Giantess—a grotesque, man-eating creature sitting on a throne of human bones, singing bawdy songs and lancing her boils. It’s as delightful as it sounds.

Charlie succeeds in rejuvenating Radar, turning her from an arthritic elderly dog back into a vital three-year-old. Mission accomplished, right?

Wrong.

Deep Maleen: The Tournament of Death

On their way back, Charlie gets captured by the “night soldiers”—reanimated skeleton warriors with electrical auras—and thrown into Deep Maleen, a dungeon beneath the palace. He’s imprisoned with 31 other captives, all “wholes” (full-blooded descendants of Empis’s royalty) that the evil Flight Killer wants eliminated.

Flight Killer is actually Elden, the brother of Princess Leah. He was bullied and disfigured as a child, made a pact with an ancient demon called Gogmagog, and transformed into a monstrous tyrant. He murdered most of the royal family and cursed the survivors—including Leah, whose mouth was magically sealed, forcing her to live as a goose girl.

The prisoners are forced to participate in the Fair One—a gladiatorial death tournament where pairs fight to the death for Elden’s entertainment. Charlie has to kill just to survive, each death weighing on him.

As Charlie spends time in Empis, something strange happens: his brown hair turns blonde, his brown eyes blue. The prisoners start calling him “prince,” believing he’s the prophesied savior who will free them. Their belief seems to physically transform him.

The Escape and the Showdown

Charlie orchestrates a prison break mid-tournament, discovering that water short-circuits the night soldiers, causing them to explode. Leading the survivors, he battles through Hana (using Bowditch’s .45 caliber handguns), another giant named Red Molly, and various undead horrors.

The final confrontation involves Leah—who’s reclaimed her voice by slashing her own mouth open—facing her transformed brother. She stabs Elden, who falls into the Deep Well. Charlie then faces Gogmagog directly, defeating the ancient demon-bat creature by repeatedly naming it—a Rumpelstiltskin-style solution that feels both mythologically appropriate and somewhat anticlimactic.

The Bittersweet Return

Charlie crowns Leah as Empis’s new queen. Any potential romance between them is impossible—the sundial’s magic renders users sterile, and besides, Charlie belongs to his own world. He returns home with Radar, who lives a full life but still doesn’t outlast her natural span.

Eventually, Charlie tells his father everything. Together, they visit Empis one last time before sealing the portal permanently with steel and concrete, setting Radar’s pawprints in the memorial slab.

My Review: A Tale of Two Halves

The First Half: Absolute Perfection

Let me start with what works, because what works in Fairy Tale works spectacularly well.

The opening 200-ish pages are some of the most beautiful, heartfelt writing I’ve encountered in genre fiction. King takes his time building Charlie’s world—his relationship with his father, the slow reveal of Bowditch’s secrets, and most importantly, his bond with Radar.

I’m a sucker for animal narratives, but even I was unprepared for how deeply King would make me care about this elderly German Shepherd. Every description of her struggling to climb stairs, the way Charlie worries about her pain, his desperate need to save her—it’s so raw and real that I found myself crying multiple times. King clearly understands the specific grief of watching a beloved pet age, and he doesn’t pull any punches.

The pacing in this section is deliberate but never boring. King is a master of the slow burn, and watching Charlie earn the trust of Mr Bowditch, inherit his secrets, and ultimately decide to enter another world to save his dog felt earned. Every emotional beat landed.

The writing here is also notably tighter than some of King’s more indulgent work (I love you, King, but we all know you can ramble). Someone—whether King himself or a strong editor—kept things focused. Charlie’s voice is authentic without being annoying, vulnerable without being whiny. As a protagonist, he’s genuinely likeable, which isn’t always a given in YA-adjacent fiction.

The World-Building: Gorgeous and Grotesque

Once Charlie enters Empis, King’s imagination runs wild in the best way. The abandoned city of Lilimar is gorgeously creepy—living architecture, overturned gargoyle heads, that perpetual gray curse draining the color from everything. It feels genuinely otherworldly while still being grounded enough to picture.

The characters Charlie meets are memorable and weird in that perfect King way. Dora the shoemaker with her yellow Converse sneakers (a gift from Bowditch) is instantly loveable. Woody and Claudia, the blind and deaf royals providing cryptic guidance, add layers of tragedy to the world’s backstory. Even Hana the Giantess, horrifying as she is, has this dark fairy-tale energy that works.

King’s horror background serves the fantasy elements brilliantly. Moments that could feel cartoonish in another author’s hands—like sneaking past a boil-lancing giant—are genuinely tense and unsettling here. He understands that the best fairy tales are the dark ones, the Brothers Grimm versions where bad things happen and not everyone gets away unscathed.

The influence of The Dark Tower is obvious here, and as someone who loved that series (yes, even the divisive later books), I appreciated the echoes. Empis feels like Mid-World‘s cousin—a world that’s “moved on,” dying slowly, waiting for someone to either save it or let it rest.

Where It Stumbles: The Second Half

Here’s where I have to diverge from my cousin’s glowing recommendation: while the first half of Fairy Tale is great, the back half doesn’t maintain the magic.

The Deep Maleen section—Charlie’s imprisonment and the gladiatorial tournament—goes on far too long. King is excellent at maintaining tension, but even his skills can’t quite justify the number of pages dedicated to the prison sequences. I found myself skimming some of the fight descriptions, which is never a good sign.

More problematically, Princess Leah never quite becomes a character I cared about. Given that she’s positioned as crucial to both the plot and the main character’s emotional journey, this is a significant issue. Her curse—the sealed mouth, the communication through her horse Falada—is viscerally disturbing in the way King excels at. But once she regains her voice, she doesn’t develop much beyond “traumatized royal who needs to reclaim her throne.”

I wanted more from her. More personality, more agency, more complexity. The potential romance between her and Charlie feels obligatory rather than organic, and honestly? I was relieved when King chose not to pursue it. But that relief probably shouldn’t exist if the relationship was better developed.

The Ending: Anticlimactic and Rushed

And then there’s the ending.

After 500+ pages of meticulous build-up, the confrontation with Flight Killer feels rushed and underwhelming. Leah stabs her brother, he falls into the well—done. The showdown with Gogmagog, the ancient cosmic evil that’s been lurking beneath everything, gets resolved through… naming it repeatedly?

Look, I understand the mythological precedent. Rumpelstiltskin, the power of true names, all that. Intellectually, it makes sense. But emotionally? After watching Charlie fight for survival, kill in the arena, lead a prison break, and battle giants, having the ultimate evil defeated through what essentially amounts to a magic spell feels like a letdown.

The epilogue, where Charlie and his father seal the portal permanently, raised more questions than it answered for me. Who’s going to guard it after Charlie dies? What if future generations need access to that magic? What if Empis faces another threat? The decisiveness felt shortsighted, though I appreciated the bittersweet note of Radar’s pawprints in the concrete.

What King Gets Right: The Emotional Truth

Despite my criticisms, Fairy Tale succeeds where it matters most: the emotional core.

Charlie’s journey isn’t really about saving an alternate world. It’s about a traumatized kid learning to be a hero not because of destiny or prophecy, but because he chooses to be. His transformation into the “prince” happens because people believe in him, because he acts with courage and compassion even when he’s terrified.

The relationship with his father—George’s recovery from alcoholism, Charlie learning to trust him again, their final journey to Empis together—is beautifully rendered. King has always excelled at father-son dynamics, and this might be some of his best work in that arena.

And Radar. God, Radar. Even knowing the sundial would restore her youth, I spent the entire book dreading her death because that’s what we do with dogs we love—we mourn them before they’re even gone. The fact that she gets more time but still lives a natural span feels right. Sad, but right.

The Verdict: Flawed But Worth the Journey

Fairy Tale isn’t perfect. The pacing is uneven, the second half doesn’t match the first’s brilliance, and the ending fumbles the landing. Princess Leah needed more development, Gogmagog deserved a better confrontation, and some judicious editing could have trimmed 50-100 pages without losing anything essential.

But here’s the thing: I still loved it.

I loved it for Charlie and Radar. For Dora’s kindness and Bowditch’s gruff mentorship. For the genuinely beautiful moments scattered throughout—Charlie discovering his hair turning blonde, the prisoners calling him prince, the description of Empis’s two moons touching. For the way King made me believe in a new world and magic – while never forgetting that magic has costs.

This is the kind of book that makes you want to call in sick to work so you can keep reading. It’s the kind that has you texting your friends saying “I’m not okay” after particularly devastating passages. It’s messy and ambitious and occasionally frustrating, but it’s also wildly imaginative and emotionally resonant in ways that pure plot mechanics can’t capture.

Final Thoughts: Worth Your Time?

If you’re a King completist, you’ve obviously already read this. If you’re a fantasy fan wary of the horror genre but still looking to get into your first Stephen King novel, Fairy Tale is a solid entry point—maybe more accessible than The Dark Tower (though less epic), definitely less dated than Carrie (though less culturally significant).

Come for the dark fantasy adventure. Stay for a teenage boy’s love for his elderly dog. Forgive the saggy middle and disappointing climax for the genuine magic King creates when he’s at his best.

My cousin was right: I cried. Multiple times. And now I’m eyeing my unread King collection with renewed interest. The Stand is calling to me. Maybe It after that. Possibly 11/22/63 if I’m feeling brave.

Because here’s what Fairy Tale taught me about Mr. King, the master of horror: even when he doesn’t stick the landing, the journey is worth taking. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Final Rating: 8/10 – A riveting, flawed fairy tale that reminds us why we fell in love with fantasy stories in the first place.

Have you read Fairy Tale? Did you cry over Radar too? Am I being too harsh on the ending? Let me know in the comments—I’d love to hear from fellow horror fans navigating King’s massive, and daunting, bibliography.