After reading the fourth installment of The Dark Tower series, Wizard and Glass finally helps you realize why Roland is who he is. After clearing up the cliffhanger of The Waste Lands, secrets that were once too painful to reveal are brought to light in an extremely long digression around a campfire, lasting about 500 pages. But don't skip it, because this story might be the most emotionally draining that you've ever read (if you're ok with the consequences, like weeping uncontrollably for hours). The climax is written in a most nostalgic way, making you want the book to just keep on going, praying that what happened was just a dream and the real ending is still to come. But no, the dream was a nightmare all along, and the worst turns out to come even later, as a second serving of tearjerking suspense.
King is at his most magical and romantic in this book. The romance is set on a distant plain under a blanket of twilit stars, in an inviting town sporting a devious witch who's hoarding a mystical crystal ball. A beautiful damsel singing melodies to the stars allures a charming young sharp-shooter, who sweeps her off her feet with his dashing boldness and fearless grace. Gunslingers and renegades do battle near iridescent canyons and the smoke billowing from an oddly-placed industrial complex. Other dreamy icons abound, giving Wizard and Glass everything that a fantasy-romance-western needs to have. Echoes of the lovers' time together still resound in my head: bird and bear and hare and fish, give my love her fondest wish.
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