Author: Stephen King, Richard Chizmar
Year: 2017, 2019, 2022
The Gwendy trilogy is an uneven journey through the life of a very special girl, and a bumpy ride through three books that are very different qualities. The series pulls from the Dark Tower, it give us standard King elements, it is an easy and short read, even being a trilogy, but it’s not all roses. Some pieces simply stink, but I get that every swing can’t be a home run. King fans will feel at home (at least mostly), but they will probably be disappointed as well, in a series that isn’t as good as it could have been.
Gwendy Peterson is a girl with promise, growing up in a small, Maine town. When she meets a mysterious man in black, she is at first on guard, but when he gives her the Button Box, she soon realizes that he has trusted her with a great power, one that gives and takes from its owner. As she grows up, many of her successes are a direct result of the box, with has the power to take life and to destroy the world, but also to grant extraordinary fortune. But dark forces want the Box as well, and as a aging woman, Gwendy will have to hold on to her inner strength to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.
The three books give us Gwendy at three periods in her life. Button Box is Gwendy as a girl, trying to understand what it is that she’s guarding. Magic Feather is Gwendy middle aged, with a career and some fame and still with the burden of the Box. Final Task takes Gwendy to the end of the story, in which she’ll have to fight the dark to win a victory for the light. It’s an up & down ride; the first is fine, sets the story, the last is cool, ends it well, but the middle is atrocious. Incidentally, Magic Feather, or book two, was only written by Chizmar, not by King, and my god does it show. It’s a 0 to 1-star book, just garbage, and doesn’t fit well with the other two, in quality anyway. As a whole, the trilogy is interesting, quick, fun, but maybe on the level of a younger reader, not a seasoned King aficionado.
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆