Bazaar

I’ll admit it: I hit ‘pause’ on *Bazaar* three times before forcing myself through to the end. Not because it’s *bad*—King’s prose still crackles with dark wit, and there are sequences (a possessed typewriter, a child’s ghostly whispers) that’ll make your skin prickle—but because it’s *exhausting*. This audiobook doesn’t just overstay its welcome; it moves in, rearranges your furniture, and starts arguing with your other books. Rudigoz’s narration is a masterclass in tonal range—she makes a grocery list sound ominous—but even she can’t smooth over the structural mess. The first act drags like a shopping cart with a broken wheel, introducing a dozen characters whose fates you’ll forget by hour 10. When the horror finally kicks in, it’s often undercut by King’s trademark tangents (a 20-minute detour about a character’s hemorrhoids *while a demon lurks nearby*). The production is clean, but the lack of chapter markers in some sections makes navigating this behemoth a chore. **Critiques?** The ‘bazaar’ itself—a shop where objects whisper secrets—is a brilliant concept wasted on repetitive jump scares. And the ending? It’s less a payoff than a shrug, as if King got bored and wandered off mid-sentence. Diehard fans will defend this as ‘atmospheric.’ Skeptics will call it self-parody. Me? I’m just glad it’s over.