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You Like It Darker: Stories

NAMED A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 HORROR BOOK OF 2024
WINNER OF THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR HORROR
FINALIST FOR THE 2025 LOCUS AWARDS

“Stephen King knows You Like It Darker and obliges with sensational new tales” (USA TODAY): From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King, an extraordinary collection of stories that are “a master class in tension and full of King’s dark humor” (The New York Times Book Review)now with a bonus story, “The Music Room.”

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,” and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids” explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,” a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man” asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

“King’s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed” (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. “The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever” (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.

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Published May 21, 2024

528 pages

Average rating: 7.06

115 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Pntmnms
Aug 22, 2024
7/10 stars
Some really good short stories that I could have seen become movies or full stories.
ediehas
Feb 28, 2025
4/10 stars
the stories on the shorter side were much better, and by better i mean spookier. some of the long ones felt like just a story.
Breeni
Jan 05, 2025
10/10 stars
Another masterpiece from Stephen King. This is a great collection of short stories, just spooky enough, and I loved the tie-in one of the stories had to Cujo. The stories were also quite different from each other, which kept things fresh, but they all seemed to revolve around themes of aging, death, and how our relationships with others and ourselves evolve over time.

Disclaimer: I work for the publisher of this title, Simon & Schuster. Opinions are my own.
iamBsquared
Nov 11, 2024
8/10 stars
Dark short stories that will have you fully invested if you can fully commit! Enjoyable especially for the imaginative mind. Spoiler: mentions of deceased children could be triggering to parents.
miguel
Oct 15, 2024
10/10 stars
We need to protect Stephen King at all costs. Loved this collection of shirt stories!

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