It would just figure that the Stephen King book I love most holds the author’s own distaste. In his memoir On Writing, he stated that, alone with another novel, Rose Madder was “overwritten, too hard working novels.” Now, that is something I would agree with when attributed to a few of the author’s other novels—but not this one.

Rose Madder isn’t only my favorite King novel; it’s my favorite book on the planet, period. I’ve used it in reports, dramatic interpretation for class, and have probably dog-eared it more than most other books I own. What isn’t to love about Rosie Real and her escape from her monstrous, abusive husband Norman (“as in Bates”)?

The book is rich with imagery and allusions to loads of other works, including Alice in Wonderland, Greek mythology, Maurice Sendak’s Really Rosie, and of course, several of King’s own works. I’m sure there are even more within the text that I don’t know of, too.

This alone isn’t enough to make it an incredible book, of course. There’s also the fact that it’s an amazing story that compels the reader to frantically turn each page, hoping to escape the horrors read on the previous page in haste yet clutching his or her throat, holding a sharp breath in, dying to know what’s going to happen next.

King commonly kills off my favorite characters. Rose Madder makes no exception to this rule; in fact, the death trail from Norman, the cop-turned-Minotaur, is long and bloody, terrifying in both its numbers and its details. Yes, King has delved into the world of abuse and rape before, but never so deeply and with such terror—at least, in my opinion.

What’s so divinely satisfying about Rose Madder isn’t just that Rosie gets justice and safety from fantastical elements, but that the realization of the madness of it all within her submerges as well. Rose Madder does not have a saccharine happy ending; instead, Rosie, who has experienced horrors none of us would wish upon our worst enemies her entire adult life, succumbs to the violence as well, feeling the rage of Rose Madder boiling inside her until she realizes that she must appease the goddess—the demon—the painting’s being that both saved and scared her.

Rose Madder is the ultimate horror fantasy novel for any feminist as well as for any horror aficionado. I think it does justice to the portrayal of both victims and abusers, the “underground” struggle of obtaining a new life, and the terrors associated with escape. It also does an excellent job of nearly making you wet your pants.