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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
For a book considered one of the most controversial/banned books ever in the US, there isn't really a lot here. A group of teenagers have a breakfast-club style psychoanalysis session after their classmate kills their math teacher and holds the group hostage. It's an interesting take on the sort of teenagerdom of Gen X, but overall this book takes on an extremely taboo subject today and creates a mostly uneventful social commentary on sex and gender.
Think really fucked up breakfast club written by an 18 Y/O.
This found me on BookTok and I was instantly intrigued as it is no longer in print.
~*thank you SearchOhio*~
Utilize your library, y'all!
This was so jagged that my brain was just "uh what" not only plot-wise but also in the writing itself. Very jumpy, very spastic but I understand that's the whole point. At least, I believe that's the whole point. Not a favorite as I would have preferred more to be hashed out about the characters but it was definitely a different read.
~*thank you SearchOhio*~
Utilize your library, y'all!
This was so jagged that my brain was just "uh what" not only plot-wise but also in the writing itself. Very jumpy, very spastic but I understand that's the whole point. At least, I believe that's the whole point. Not a favorite as I would have preferred more to be hashed out about the characters but it was definitely a different read.
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This short story is messed up. The main character kind of reminds me of Holden from The Catcher in the Rye (love that book). I found it interesting, the layout and the different school characters. King could have made this longer if he wanted to add more details and backstory to each one. I wanted to read it and see why he took the book off the market. Obviously I know it’s about a school shooting but what made King feel like the story was influential to school shootings to discontinue printing it. It’s chilling to think he wrote this before school shootings happened often in America. Overall I enjoyed the story and the details that King includes in his novels.
dark
fast-paced
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
⭐️⭐️💫(2.5/5)
So this is the infamous book Stephen King pulled from shelves because it was being linked to real-world school violence, and obviously that morbid little gremlin in my brain went, “Ooooh I need to read that.” We had a dusty old copy haunting a bookshelf like a cursed object from a Goosebumps episode, and after years of dramatic glances in its direction, I finally read it. And… yeah. Huh.
I was bracing for American Horror Story: Tate Langdon holding court in the black and white murder zone vibes, maybe something bone-chilling, taboo, terrifying. Instead, I got... Breakfast Club but make it traumatised and mildly homicidal. Like, yes, someone gets shot, but the rest is just a bunch of teens trauma-dumping in a classroom like it’s free therapy day and the teacher's tied up in the closet (because he is).
It’s definitely unsettling in concept, but I don’t know - maybe because I’m reading this as a Brit where school shootings are extremely rare and surreal-feeling, it just didn’t hit the way it was probably intended to. The horror felt distant, like watching a thunderstorm on TV with the volume turned down. If I was American, maybe it would’ve been more “oh shit,” but from over here, it felt more “huh, alright then.”
The pacing is also weird. One minute you’re knee-deep in inner monologue purgatory, the next you’re flicking past a chapter that’s literally just ten lines and a sigh. Maybe it was a metaphor for Charlie’s fractured mental state? Or maybe King/Bachman just thought “structure is for cowards” and went for vibes only.
Do I get why King pulled it? Absolutely. But did I like it? Not really. It’s kind of like finding a bootleg horror VHS under the floorboards and realising it’s mostly angsty monologues and awkward tension with just a sprinkle of murder. Cool lore. Meh execution.
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is one of Stephen King's earliest works, written in 1966 under his Richard Bachman pen name (though it was published much later). It's quite hard to find these days, as it was withdrawn from sale after being found in the locker of the teenage perpetrator of a school shooting.
Rage is told from the point of view of a very disturbed teen as he looks back on the events that led to his incarceration when he takes a gun into school and starts shooting. After a history of violence, Charlie is finally expelled from school when he beats a young girl so badly that she is hospitalised. Instead of going straight home after his interview with the headmaster, Charlie walks into his classroom with a gun and shoots the teacher dead. Before he properly realises what he has done, he finds himself in charge of a hostage situation with the power of life and death over his classmates as the police gather outside.
This is a short novel that strangely reminded me of the movie The Breakfast Club, when a group of high school teens find themselves unsupervised together in a classroom and begin to open up to each other about their private lives. Charlie talks about his own difficult home life and we gain an insight into how his mind became so disturbed, but the others in the class also reveal a lot about themselves and form a bond, both with each other and with their captor. We begin to forget all about the murdered teacher and find ourselves rooting for Charlie and wishing that he could somehow escape the terrible situation he's got himself into.
Rage is a book about the darkness within us all, and how easy it is for that darkness to erupt into violence. The ending is quite shocking, brilliantly written and really makes you think. While Rage may not be his best work, it is an intense novel that already bears Stephen King's unique style and shows the beginnings of his huge talent.
Rage is told from the point of view of a very disturbed teen as he looks back on the events that led to his incarceration when he takes a gun into school and starts shooting. After a history of violence, Charlie is finally expelled from school when he beats a young girl so badly that she is hospitalised. Instead of going straight home after his interview with the headmaster, Charlie walks into his classroom with a gun and shoots the teacher dead. Before he properly realises what he has done, he finds himself in charge of a hostage situation with the power of life and death over his classmates as the police gather outside.
This is a short novel that strangely reminded me of the movie The Breakfast Club, when a group of high school teens find themselves unsupervised together in a classroom and begin to open up to each other about their private lives. Charlie talks about his own difficult home life and we gain an insight into how his mind became so disturbed, but the others in the class also reveal a lot about themselves and form a bond, both with each other and with their captor. We begin to forget all about the murdered teacher and find ourselves rooting for Charlie and wishing that he could somehow escape the terrible situation he's got himself into.
Rage is a book about the darkness within us all, and how easy it is for that darkness to erupt into violence. The ending is quite shocking, brilliantly written and really makes you think. While Rage may not be his best work, it is an intense novel that already bears Stephen King's unique style and shows the beginnings of his huge talent.