I decided Bradbury just isn't for me. Too verbose and just doesn't catch my attention. I felt the same after reading The Playground, but I assumed it was because I don't often strongly connect to short stories. Nope.

Got 3/4 of the way through and decided not to waste any more of my time on it.

Even after the "good guys" won, this book left me feeling creeped out. Very scary and very evil - I'm not letting my kids read this one until they are in high school at least. I also didn't appreciate Bradbury's choice of vocabulary - do the characters really need to use profanity to express their fright?

I love the way Ray Bradbury describes things. This book is a nice spooky Halloween read and even if you don't like spooky, you've got to love his writing.

I liked it but it took me a while to get into. Creepy story.

This is a reread. So grateful to return to Bradbury's world of the small midwestern town...with a twist.

Bradbury has a command of words that many authors cannot approach....strings of words that evoke an atmosphere which chilled me. Autumn people and summer people. There will always be conflict.

The reader was very good at distinguishing character voices, but the voice for Jim was a bit too whiney.

I am not a big fan of Bradbury, he is a bit dry and verbose for my taste. That being said, this is an interesting story of human nature. In a small midwestern town a circus comes to visit, but this circus is anything but ordinary. Two boys get caught up in the age old battle of good versus evil. But instead of battling monsters, the fight is with their selves.

I *loved* Stefan Rudinicki as a reader for Ender's Game, but I am really struggling with him as a reader for this book. He's too grandiose. Someone like Tom Stechschulte I think would work better.

Love the book, hate the audiobook.

Something Wicked is a classic, and for good reason. It addresses the power of friendship, loe, and acceptance over that of never-ending evil.

It was a good read. I love the way Bradbury keeps driving the story forward.

STILL after 60 years it is just as good as it was when I first read in 1974! FLAWLESS! Bradbury's best novel of his career IMO. This review is for the most AH-MAZINGLY narrated ever audiobook!

Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade are the BEST of friends and they are both October boys! They have grown up right next door to each other and one night in October in the middle of the night.....they hear music. CREEPY music of an old calliope. They both tell each other that it could not be a carnival this late in the season.....but they are wrong! And the carnival that is coming into town this late October is one that will push the boys and their fathers and small town to the limits of the BIZARRE!

When the lightning rod salesman approaches the boys and talks them into believing that one of their houses is going to get struck fatally by an approaching lightning storm if they don't purchase one to put ontheir roof, the boys don't think anything of it....they buy it and the boys climb on the roof and attach it to the roof point. What they dont know is that they are marking themselves to be tormented and drawn to the Crueger and Dark Traveling Carnival and what they discover will make them look at their friendship, their family's and LIFE in a way that they will never forget!

With Will's Father being 54 he has always 'felt too OLD' to be Wills Dad, but not Will, he is his father that he adores. He works as a janitor in the evenings at the local library. Jim's family is completely different; they are young parents and Jim has always taken things kinda for granted. When the boys start to watch the carnival set up at 3 in the morning, they witness some of the most creepy and yet fascinating characters ever. And believe me, these characters are ones that you will both fear, and love at the same time. Only Bradbury could have written this story in the early 60's.....and with the Walt Disney motion picture of the same name, they are both Classics in their own ways. My favorite part of this classic is the horrifying and very creepy Carousel.....and this is one that takes you on a ride that can either make you older or younger; depending on which way it turns! YES! You are in for the ride of a lifetime, and if you are going again, you will love it as much this time as you did if not MORE than that first time you experienced 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'! Ready to go to the Darks traveling 'Creep Show!?' Let's Go! HIGHLY recommend this coming of age Horror, suspense, and emotional read.

5 SCREAMS all the way thru October!

A Sound of Thunder: You know how every once in awhile, you read (or watch) something in which the end causes your stomach to jump into your throat as if you were on a steep, steep roller coaster? Well, I had that experience when I was in 5th grade, reading a story about how some kids go back in time to see dinosaurs, and one of them steps off the path, and when they come back, he is horrified to find that things are almost, but not quite the same - and then finds a smooshed butterfly on his shoe! Since that time, I have grown up to become a fan of scary stories and movies (not gross-out or B-horror, but truly scary, such as "Dead Again" and "Signs" and "The Sixth Sense" and other TRULY surprise-ending movies), of Stephen King specifically, and many others. But I always had this story from 5th grade in the back of my mind as the ultimate shock-ending story, though I could no longer remember what it was called or who it was by. So imagine my immense joy when I listened to this at the end of this audio book, and this aws the story! As interesting as the re-finding of the story was the fact that it was not exactly what I remembered - for one thing, they were not kids. I was sure what I had read was about kids - and why? Because I was a kid at the time, and somehow the author really caused me to get into the characters. As a kid, couldn't I imagine how just a little bit of breaking the rules could cause huge consequences? Apparently so! And as an adult, I was able to grasp the political as well. So this may go down as my favorite short story ever, just because of my lifelong memory of the first heart-pounding, gut-dropping surprise ending of many.

Wicked: What a fantastic novel! I do really really love Ray Bradbury and his mind, his symbolism, his good story. I love that the father ends up being the hero. I specifically love the part where Will "notices" how tall his father is - to me, the turning point of the novel, because he no longer sees his father as this weird little library man, but as an actual hero! And I like the fact that knowledge wins out over brute power, and good over evil...for now.