Scan barcode
A review by nicolem_young
The Body by Stephen King
5.0
Book/Story: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Book Cover: ⭐⭐
TRIGGER(S): DEATH, MENTAL HEALTH (briefly mentioned), LEARNING DISABILITIES (briefly mentioned), MISCARRIAGE, FAMILY/DOMESTIC ABUSE
POV: Singular, First Person
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Part of a series: No
Safe or Dark: Safeish (see trigger warnings)
Some people just have a natural talent for writing, and Stephen King is one of them. He can write a short novella under 200 pages just as well as a very long read over 1,000 pages. And that’s exactly what this book was: a short, quick, great, and enjoyable read. I devoured it the same way I do a full-size Hershey’s chocolate bar.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. My husband’s favorite author is our Lord and Savior, Stephen King, and despite this, I've quite frankly slept on SK for far too long. Three out of four of his books I finally got around to reading were just, oh man, they were *chef’s kiss*.
Anyone who can use their own experience of a life-threatening car crash to come up with the plot of a book deserves a gold medal. [b:Misery|10614|Misery|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554220401l/10614._SY75_.jpg|3230869], I’m talking about [b:Misery|10614|Misery|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554220401l/10614._SY75_.jpg|3230869].
This might be an unpopular opinion, but [b:It|830502|It|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334416842l/830502._SY75_.jpg|150259] fell a little flat for me. I don’t even care. I truly don't, because my boy King here made up for that (personal) flop with this piece of work alone. I could kiss that creepy son of a bitch for publishing this one. Dead on the lips. Pucker up, ya freak. Jesus, maybe I’m the freak. It’s me. Hi. I’m the freak in this situation.
It is a well-known fact that the movie Stand by Me is the film adaptation of this book. While I knew the general premise of the movie and had seen previews, I had never actually watched it. So, I more or less went into this story blind when it came to the more in-depth details and overall plot. Okay, so maybe I didn’t know as much about Stand by Me as I claimed. This is what I knew: “Do you guys wanna see a dead body?” That’s it. I thought the whole story was about this group of kids going to find a dead body and poking at it with sticks and stuff. I mean, what do kids do when they come across a dead body? Hell, if I know. Anyway, I digress.
As I mentioned above this book is on the shorter side (coming in at roughly 181 pages). It’s a book you could read in a day. I will never understand how King managed to flesh out all of the characters in this story so quickly. Approximately fifteen pages in we get gorgeous, complex, fleshed out characters that I was 120% invested in. As I mentioned above I knew which actors played the characters in Stand by Me. I saw River Phoenix (RIP my man), Wil Wheaton, Kiefer Sutherland, Jerry O'Connell, and so on, and so on. But I somehow was still somehow able to picture these characters in my own mind not as the actors who portrayed them but as their own individual persons and that my friend’s right there was all in the magic of the character descriptions.
Some authors take chapters to do that in longer books. You can be ten chapters into a book, and the characters still end up feeling as real as the cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan I had chilling in my childhood bedroom. SK’s ability to write characters will forever be unmatched. I could honestly go on all day about this. I truly could.
The way I was reading a coming-of-age story without feeling like I was reading a coming-of-age story was, in my opinion, insane. I am not a fan of coming-of-age stories. I will never be a fan of coming-of-age stories, but this one, oh guys, this one SLAPS. It slaps to the power of ten. It was not dragged out like some coming-of-age stories can be. It did not have a lull to build up character development. It all just happened so effortlessly. Again, how King did it in under 200 pages, I’ll never know.
SK pops two short stories within this story, and both are great. I highly enjoyed “Stud City." I could seriously get into an entire book about that. He got me invested in not only this book overall but also in a short story that one of the characters, narrator Gordon Lachance, wrote. Lachance is telling the tale of a summer he spent with his friend as a kid and becoming an author later in life. While telling us about the past, he shares one or two stories he wrote in his creative writing classes and whatnot, and they were so good, so damn good. I enjoyed these more than the story of "Misery" within the book [b:Misery|10614|Misery|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554220401l/10614._SY75_.jpg|3230869]. Was that confusing? I hope not.
I can’t say enough good things about this one, ya’ll. I enjoyed it from start to finish. Absolutely amazing. This was in my opinion definitely one of King’s most thought-provoking books.
I am now convinced that I need to work my way through Stephen King’s catalog in its entirety. Except for the one that is known to be notoriously awful. Was it [b:Dreamcatcher|11570|Dreamcatcher|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611766265l/11570._SY75_.jpg|643924]? No, maybe [b:The Tommyknockers|17660|The Tommyknockers|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394210331l/17660._SY75_.jpg|150226]? It was whichever one he wrote while he was on drugs or painkillers. I might skip that one.
TLDR: READ IT! I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY THAN THAT! READ THIS BOOK!
Book Cover: ⭐⭐
TRIGGER(S): DEATH, MENTAL HEALTH (briefly mentioned), LEARNING DISABILITIES (briefly mentioned), MISCARRIAGE, FAMILY/DOMESTIC ABUSE
POV: Singular, First Person
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Part of a series: No
Safe or Dark: Safeish (see trigger warnings)
Some people just have a natural talent for writing, and Stephen King is one of them. He can write a short novella under 200 pages just as well as a very long read over 1,000 pages. And that’s exactly what this book was: a short, quick, great, and enjoyable read. I devoured it the same way I do a full-size Hershey’s chocolate bar.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. My husband’s favorite author is our Lord and Savior, Stephen King, and despite this, I've quite frankly slept on SK for far too long. Three out of four of his books I finally got around to reading were just, oh man, they were *chef’s kiss*.
Anyone who can use their own experience of a life-threatening car crash to come up with the plot of a book deserves a gold medal. [b:Misery|10614|Misery|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554220401l/10614._SY75_.jpg|3230869], I’m talking about [b:Misery|10614|Misery|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554220401l/10614._SY75_.jpg|3230869].
This might be an unpopular opinion, but [b:It|830502|It|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334416842l/830502._SY75_.jpg|150259] fell a little flat for me. I don’t even care. I truly don't, because my boy King here made up for that (personal) flop with this piece of work alone. I could kiss that creepy son of a bitch for publishing this one. Dead on the lips. Pucker up, ya freak. Jesus, maybe I’m the freak. It’s me. Hi. I’m the freak in this situation.
It is a well-known fact that the movie Stand by Me is the film adaptation of this book. While I knew the general premise of the movie and had seen previews, I had never actually watched it. So, I more or less went into this story blind when it came to the more in-depth details and overall plot. Okay, so maybe I didn’t know as much about Stand by Me as I claimed. This is what I knew: “Do you guys wanna see a dead body?” That’s it. I thought the whole story was about this group of kids going to find a dead body and poking at it with sticks and stuff. I mean, what do kids do when they come across a dead body? Hell, if I know. Anyway, I digress.
As I mentioned above this book is on the shorter side (coming in at roughly 181 pages). It’s a book you could read in a day. I will never understand how King managed to flesh out all of the characters in this story so quickly. Approximately fifteen pages in we get gorgeous, complex, fleshed out characters that I was 120% invested in. As I mentioned above I knew which actors played the characters in Stand by Me. I saw River Phoenix (RIP my man), Wil Wheaton, Kiefer Sutherland, Jerry O'Connell, and so on, and so on. But I somehow was still somehow able to picture these characters in my own mind not as the actors who portrayed them but as their own individual persons and that my friend’s right there was all in the magic of the character descriptions.
Some authors take chapters to do that in longer books. You can be ten chapters into a book, and the characters still end up feeling as real as the cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan I had chilling in my childhood bedroom. SK’s ability to write characters will forever be unmatched. I could honestly go on all day about this. I truly could.
The way I was reading a coming-of-age story without feeling like I was reading a coming-of-age story was, in my opinion, insane. I am not a fan of coming-of-age stories. I will never be a fan of coming-of-age stories, but this one, oh guys, this one SLAPS. It slaps to the power of ten. It was not dragged out like some coming-of-age stories can be. It did not have a lull to build up character development. It all just happened so effortlessly. Again, how King did it in under 200 pages, I’ll never know.
SK pops two short stories within this story, and both are great. I highly enjoyed “Stud City." I could seriously get into an entire book about that. He got me invested in not only this book overall but also in a short story that one of the characters, narrator Gordon Lachance, wrote. Lachance is telling the tale of a summer he spent with his friend as a kid and becoming an author later in life. While telling us about the past, he shares one or two stories he wrote in his creative writing classes and whatnot, and they were so good, so damn good. I enjoyed these more than the story of "Misery" within the book [b:Misery|10614|Misery|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554220401l/10614._SY75_.jpg|3230869]. Was that confusing? I hope not.
I can’t say enough good things about this one, ya’ll. I enjoyed it from start to finish. Absolutely amazing. This was in my opinion definitely one of King’s most thought-provoking books.
I am now convinced that I need to work my way through Stephen King’s catalog in its entirety. Except for the one that is known to be notoriously awful. Was it [b:Dreamcatcher|11570|Dreamcatcher|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1611766265l/11570._SY75_.jpg|643924]? No, maybe [b:The Tommyknockers|17660|The Tommyknockers|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394210331l/17660._SY75_.jpg|150226]? It was whichever one he wrote while he was on drugs or painkillers. I might skip that one.
TLDR: READ IT! I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY THAN THAT! READ THIS BOOK!