I never read the Christmas pageant, or anything by King.

A prayer for Owen is the only Irving I read twice. And one of the few book I read more than once.

Dont you think you disliked it because you found trace of other books in it?

It happen to me all the time. As soon as a tiny detail evoke another former book, I hate this one and find a lot of reason to hate it.

I hate the Alchemist by Coehlo because it's a tedious rewriting of a very short and beautiful story by Jorge Luis Borges (a Tale of 2 Dreamers). The reality being, I moderately enjoyed The Alchemist before reading the Borges's Short story.

On A prayer.

I would not recommend to someone not already liking Irving. The message is heavy handed, and the end is so much cheesy it hurt. But the journey to get there is cool. A best entrance into Irving, must be "World according to Garp", funny, complex character, and a nice page (251 in my edition) you can alert people about. Here, The whole book shift gear (pun intended, if you read the book)

A Prayer for Owen, is more like a power fantasy. Let say a romance story for men. A super powerful , likable guy , we all want to identify with. Yeah, that's not a book to recommend. More a book you enjoy alone , cry and laugh with, and you feel a bit shameful with all those heavy feeling you experienced..