The Drawing of the Three Review

Note: This is a spoiler-free reflection.

Ever since I heard of the Dark Tower series, I’ve wanted to dig into it. I was practically raised on Stephen King novels but never felt ready to immerse myself in this series. Too daunting of a task. When I read The Gunslinger back in October of 2013, I liked it, but not enough to hook me. Ten years later, I decided to give the second book a shot, and things changed.

Since I read the first book ten years ago, I needed a recap. I was happy that King included a 2-page “Argument” that served as a brief refresher of the previous book.

Getting into this book was much easier than the first. The writing style is more accessible and much closer to other King books from that era. While the first book primarily focuses on Roland, this book explicitly switches viewpoints to several more characters.

It also showcases Roland’s obsession with reaching the Dark Tower, even though he doesn’t entirely seem to know what it is. He only knows that it’s his destiny to go there and that his “true enemy” controls it. The book doesn’t shed much light on Roland as a character and focuses more on the plot and introducing these new additional characters to the story.

Don’t let that discourage you because this story is a lot of fun. It’s action-packed, takes crazy twists and turns, and feels like a setup for future Dark Tower novels, which I’m much more interested in reading now. Overall, I’m happy I gave this series another try because, unlike many of King’s books, I found this ending satisfying.