We made it! Phase one of the challenge ends here, with King revisiting his favorite kinds of kids, the telepathic and telekinetic.

Justin and Kayla breeze through King’s novella about a man experiencing a mysterious weight loss. It’s a nice little book but straddles the line of being way too sentimental.

Justin and Kayla discuss King’s moody police procedural that we all know will take a turn into something weirder. The Outsider turns out to be one of our favorite books of the reading journey.

What happens if all the women in the world fell asleep and didn’t wake up? That’s the central question of the collaboration of Stephen King and his youngest son Owen King. Fascinating premise, but does the story hold together over 700 pages?

The Bill Hodges trilogy wraps up with the rematch between the Finders Keepers gang and Brady Hartsfield, Mr. Mercedes. Justin and Kayla have really enjoyed King’s detective series, though King throws in a supernatural twist. How do we like that?

Justin and Kayla are reunited with Bill Hodges and the rest of the gang. They’ve formalized their work into a company called Finders Keepers. This book gives us a bit of a break from the Brady Hartsfield story but throws a loop at the end. Meanwhile, we get to hear all about antique and rare book dealing and prison life.

Kayla and Justin dive into Revival, King’s ode to Shelley’s Frankenstein, Machen’s The Great God Pan, and Lovecraftian cosmic horror. This book starts off as a classic coming-of-age story, but it’s King so you know to expect a twist. Turns out, our world is just a cover for the horrifying chaos universe beyond! Plus, Kayla can’t resist a chance to talk about a chapter of her thesis!

Justin and Kayla start Stephen King’s detective series, the Bill Hodges trilogy. King hasn’t written too many series, so we were excited to start this change of pace for King.

The awesome pulpy cover is a bit tricky! We thought we were in for an exciting murder mystery, but then we got an emotional coming-of-age story with a pinch of murder, a spoon of psychic kid, and a dollop of sentimental old guy reflection. But it’s still a pretty likable story!

King gives us a look into the adult life of Danny Torrance, the kid who was menaced by his father and some ghosts at the Overlook Hotel. Dan teams up with a powerful kid named Abra to defeat a group of psychic vampires called the True Knot. Sounds cool, but it’s not.