Stephen King is one of the most popular authors of all time. Starting in the ’70s, King carved out a niche for himself as a master of horror fiction, becoming a guaranteed bestseller and spawning dozens of TV and film adaptations of his work with their own beloved fandom. He is one of the most widely read authors of all time. So, what do his Goodreads ratings tell us about the best of the best King novels?
The answer is curious. King’s Goodreads stats don’t come close to reflecting his cultural impact, or his historic number of readers over the past 50 years and counting. Surprisingly, only two Stephen King books have been rated on Goodreads more than one million times. Which is why this ranking sets a more modest threshold of 500,000 ratings for consideration.
As such, before looking at the Top 6 (because two King novels are tied for the top spot right now), it is worth shouting out the top rated Stephen King book on Goodreads, The Green Mile, which holds a 4.49 rating. Yet it only has less than 400,000 responses, making it ineligible for this list. Likewise, there are several other King books, regarded as classics by many, which hold respectable ratings, but don’t have the numbers to stack up with the novels below.
6
‘Salem’s Lot
The majority of users who have rated Salem’s Lot on Goodreads agree that Stephen King’s second published novel is a solid read, but there’s a nearly even split between those who think it is great, and those who would say it is just good. 39% of the book’s nearly 700,000 ratings are 5 stars, while 37% of readers gave it 4 stars.
That means roughly a quarter of readers were dissatisfied by King’s early “haunted house + vampires” story, all of which evens out to a 4.10 average rating overall. In fact, the top 1-star review for ‘Salem’s Lot (by likes from other users) sums it up this way: “It’s like ‘Haunting of Hill House’ and ‘Dracula’ had a baby they were both a little embarrassed about.”
For readers the novel does click with, though, it is consistently called a favorite, one of Stephen King’s best, and an eminently rereadable and continually unnerving horror tale that highlights everything that would make King a success in the future.
5
Misery
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Misery is Stephen King’s 21st novel, published during the peak of his career in the late 1980s. The book is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary, and its adaptation is on the short list for best movies based on King source material. On Goodreads, it has been rated just shy of 870,000 times, more than many of the author’s books, but still surprisingly less than you might expect.
What’s also possibly surprising is that only 45% of those readers gave the book a flawless 5-star rating. Resulting in a 4.22 average rating overall. Positive reviews praise Misery for its taught psychological drama, its pacing, and for turning up the dial on the self-aware qualities that permeate Stephen King’s fiction. Plenty of writers make an author stand-in their protagonists, but few put them through hell like King does with Paul Sheldon in this book.
On the 1-star side of things, Misery’s critics often share the same response: they found the book to be a miserable experience to read. But perhaps even worse are the middle of the road reviews, which accuse the novel of an even worse sin than being bad. That is, being boring.
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It, Stephen King’s 17th novel, is in the conversation, with The Stand and The Shining, for his magnum opus. Lately, it has become one of his most popular franchises, with a 2-part theatrical film adaptation and a prequel TV series. Which is likely why it is one of just a few King novels to get over one million Goodreads ratings. 1.3 million, in fact.
Almost precisely half of which are 5-star reviews. 50% of readers say It lives up to the hype. There are sub-5% worth of 2-star and 1-star reviews, amounting to just over 60,000 deeply dissatisfied readers. The rest found fault with the book, but also a lot to like, giving it 3-star and 4-star ratings. That equals out to a 4.23 average star rating. Just barely beating Misery.
The lion’s share of 4-star and below ratings for It, and even some of the 5-star reviews as well, cite the book’s length as a drawback. (It is the 10th longest English-language novel by word count, after all.) And while there isn’t solid data on this, we can extrapolate from that the possibility that It is up there on the list of Stephen King’s most frequently DNF’d books as well.
3
The Shining
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The Shining is Stephen King’s third published novel, following up ‘Salem’s Lot. Arguably, it is King’s first masterpiece, depending on how readers feel about Carrie. (On Goodreads, the answer is “not great.” Despite being in the zeitgeist with another adaptation, Carrie has just a 3.99 average rating with almost 900,000 responses.) And it is also his most rated book on Goodreads by far, clocking nearly 1.8 million.
51% of them have given the book 5 stars. Another 32% 4-starred The Shining, but enough of a minority of readers have given the book mid-to-bad ratings to weigh down its score. The novel currently sits at an average of 4.29 stars. In this case, could the success of The Shining’s film adaptation be a detriment to the book’s Goodreads rating?
Stephen King infamously dislikes the Stanley Kubrick version of his story, which has made the “book vs. movie” discussion surrounding The Shining particularly partisan, and while 5-star reviewers tend to take King’s side, less thrilled 3-star and below readers are usually in Kubrick’s camp.
2
11/22/63
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11/22/63 is the most modern Stephen King book to make this ranking, and it actually currently shares the top spot overall with a 4.35 average star rating, based on data from slightly more than 700,000 Goodreads users. The time travel story came out in 2011, and was adapted into a well-received 2016 TV series; it is King’s 49th novel, and his 60th published book, including short story collections.
52% of readers give the alternate history story a 5-star review, while 33% awarded it 4-stars. As is often the downfall for King’s books, it seems that for these latter readers, fatigue set in before the book was over, meaning it started off as a thrill ride, but maybe ended as a slog.
That kept 11/22/63 from perfection for almost a quarter of a million readers, but still, the consensus is that this is King operating at his best. Less than 100,000 users disagree, but with many of those outliers, it seems to be a matter of not clicking with the premise, or wanting the novel to be something it wasn’t.
1
The Stand
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The Stand gets plenty of people’s votes for Stephen King’s best work, and the Goodreads numbers back that up. Though it shares its 4.35 average star rating with 11/22/63, it has been rated approximately 160,000 more times and counting. King’s post-apocalyptic fantasy tome, his fifth novel, has a 55% majority of 5-star responses, and only 3% 2-star and 1-star reviews.
That the rest are 3-star and 4-star ratings. It is a testament to the fact that more ratings and reviews tend to level out the average for even the most lauded books. Critiques of The Shining predictably harp on length, and argue that King failed to live up to the early promise of the story with how it plays out, to cite a few of the more eloquent responses.
There’s also a lot of straight-up vitriol toward the book. Fans of The Stand, meanwhile, put it on a pedestal with The Lord of the Rings as a fantasy epic, and praise its terrifying initial story of a civilization-ending plague outbreak, while calling the prose some of Stephen King’s most gripping.
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