Christine

I had seen the movie a few tines but never read the book and man do they cut out a ton. I really enjoyed the book and the characters. The themes of love, friendship, family, anger, and hate all work together here.

I'm glad I finally read it but also glad it wasn't until now when I'm older with a different outlook on things. I really did enjoy this story.

Stephen King is a genius. CHRISTINE is a masterpiece. It is the most traumatic, shocking, horrific, frightening and yet unequivocally brilliant piece of fiction that I have ever read. It is a horror novel. It is a love story. It is a tragedy. That is a review in its own right, but I choose to continue. Because this is fun.

The story goes like this: A young lad by the name of Arnie Cunningham is cruising the streets of his hometown with his pal Dennis ... When Arnie just happens to catch a glimpse of a vision of something that he never knew that he wanted. A 1958 Plymouth Fury sedan. The problem is, the car is a wreck, it is a rust bucket which shouldn't be on the road. And there is no way in hell that our Arnie can afford to fix it up. Dennis can see it for what it is but he cant make his pal Arnie see the wood for the trees. But Arnie buys it anyway. Because when Arnie looks at this particular Plymouth he doesn't see what everyone else sees. He sees a stud bucket on wheels. He sees success. He sees easy living. He sees everything he has ever wanted without ever realising he wanted it. In other words, the devil has come to Libertyville and he has set his sights on Arnold Cunningham as his first victim.

Stephen King has always been a delight to read. In CHRISTINE, his writing is suspenseful, compelling and at times down right addictive. Given that the book was written back in the 1980s it still holds up remarkably well today. At times, CHRISTINE is shocking, but in a good way. You switch on the kindle (or open your book) and see an innocent and innocuous looking chapter introduction that (so my kindle tells me) will take me 15 minutes to read but once you read this chapter you are faced with the choice of re-reading it for the simple joy of it, or rushing straight on to the next chapter even though it is a work day and it is well past your bed time. Personally, i tend to re-read them. His "shocking" chapters are classic Stephen King gore fests, which are gruesome, highly enjoyable rides of absolute terror and completely unexpected. Hence the shock factor. They can also be quite moving and emotional once your heart beat and blood pressure drop back to normal levels. And also once you have regained your grip on reality and your own sanity.

Reading CHRISTINE is like attending a master class in writing sophisticated horror fiction. As always with Mr King, his characterisation stands out like high powered fog lamps on a brand new 4WD motor vehicle. His plot is sufficiently complicated and complex that the book never seems long despite its 746 pages. I have already mentioned its gore factor, the shocks and the unremitting terror in the second half. And so to the ending. It is perfect. It is brilliant, shocking and yet, heartbreakingly sad. The perfect (horrific) ending to the perfect horror novel. Brilliant stuff.

BFN, Greggorio.

I have read a lot of short stories and novellas by Stephen King, but this is the first full-length novel of his I've read in a long time and I'm glad that I read it. I'm a writer and a large part of the reason that I read that book was that I wanted to study the way that King crafted a longer work, just purely from a structural point-of-view and this was definitely the right book to read for that.

While I found that the story dragged a bit at times and at times I skipped over some of the "internal" dialogue of the narrator (he analyzes himself a lot and those thoughts are a running part of the narration--and sometimes too long winded), I found that overall the character development was exceedingly well done. I took my time reading the book, just 20 pages or so a day, but it was fun that way and I looked forward to going back to it.

The violence isn't really that disturbing in the book and you have to suspend disbelief so much to accept the plot to begin with that the violence doesn't seem that real anyway. In fact, the whole premise is so ludicrous that if it wasn't for the great writing, you'd toss the book back down after a few chapters. But, because the characters are so strong and their motivations so real and believable, you stick with it. Again, at times thing dragged on and if I were his editor, I could have easily chopped out 50 pages and not disturbed the story in any way. But hey, if you like the characters, like the storyline, who cares if it drags on now and again. Also, the point-of-view changes from first person to third person to first person in the three sections of the book, which is a kind of interesting twist.

Overall I think this is a really interesting read and probably worth the read just for diversion sake. If you're looking for reality, King is (in this book at least) the wrong place to look. But if you have a kind of "what if..." imagination, I think this classic work will entertain you a lot. I loved it. Oh, and if you are a writer, you'll learn a lot about your craft.

Just about anyone who has ever heard of Stephen King knows that he has written some of the scariest novels of all, but few people realize that at the same time he can write such unexpectedly touching stories as part of those novels. Yes, this is a book about a car seized by dark spirits, but it's much more than that. At its heart, it's about two best friends: Dennis (the popular athlete) and Arnie (the nerd). In fact, Arnie is such an outsider that Dennis is his ONLY friend. They couldn't be much more different from each other, but they've known each other since even before kindergarten. Arnie is a character who should be familiar to anyone who remembers high school, where it's normal to find several kids excluded from the standard social groups for whatever reasons, and this serves very well to humanize him to the reader.

This book is divided into three narrative sections: the first and last are written in the first person from Dennis's viewpoint, and the middle is written in the third person. The story starts rather abruptly, when Arnie spots a rusting hulk of a fading red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury with a "For Sale" sign propped up on its dash as he and Dennis pass in Dennis's car, then yells at Dennis to turn around so he can look at the car. Dennis tries to talk him out of it, but Arnie will not be moved, and he buys the car, which he dubs "Christine." It doesn't take very long before strange things begin to happen with and around Christine: It gradually begins to look and run better even though Arnie seems to hardly do anything with it; its odometer runs in reverse when driven normally; and more sinister occurrences. Then, something unexpected happens when Arnie meets and starts dating a beautiful girl named Leigh, and things really get interesting. It's interesting that King goes full circle by making "Christine" similar to his breakthrough novel "Carrie," as it centers on an ostracized high school student, and as with "Carrie," the reader is pulled into really caring about the characters, especially Arnie. I've already read it twice (the last time was twenty-six years ago), and I'm reading it again; I like the story that much.

This novel follows the story of a young man named Arnie Cunningham and his car, Christine. Along for the ride is his best friend Dennis and girlfriend Leigh. It seems that Christine is no ordinary car. This haunted automobile has a habit of killing people who have crossed Arnie and the spirit of the car's former owner slowly takes over control of Arnie himself. How his friends react to all of this is what forms the meat of the story.

Regular readers of Stephen King will probably not be surprised to hear that the greatest strength of this book is its characters. Dennis narrates most of the tale and he is a very likable young man. Leigh is another good character and is very easy to root for. Arnie basically represents the tragic victim here. He was victimized by school bullies and his domineering mother before buying the car and then is placed in peril of losing his entire existence. The former owner of the car, Roland LeBay, also looms large and his sheer malice makes him compelling in his own right.

The story moves along at a solid pace for the most part but does sag a bit in the middle. The book is less terrifying than it is creepy. The suspense keeps you tingling with interest but don't expect truly intense scares here. There is some light humor peppered in to help break the tension from time to time and it works fairly well. Probably the weakest part of the book is that the beginning of every chapter is marked with song lyrics that pertain to cars. They don't relate even loosely to the story so they appear to be there solely for the sake of nostalgia. The problem is that they are so old and/or obscure that I've never heard the vast majority of them so they end up serving no purpose at all. It's obvious that King put a lot of effort into digging these up but the effort was wasted on me and most readers under the age of 55 or 60 will probably have the same reaction.

In summary, I enjoyed reading Christine. The characters are interesting, the suspense worked for me, and I definitely wanted to see what happened next. The book has flaws but they are pretty minor and did not detract in any major way from my enjoyment. This is not Stephen King's best novel but it is well worth reading.