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alexcannotread 's review for:
Blockade Billy
by Stephen King
Alright, so here's the basics of what I know about baseball: there's two teams, a scoreboard, a batter (he hits the ball with a bat!), a pitcher (he throws the ball at the batter!), out fielders (they try and catch the ball and get the batter out!), and an umpire (he catches balls on strikes?)
So basically, I was mostly clueless on the baseball lingo. Which, should make it even more impressive to how much I absolutely enjoyed this novella.
Nitpicking my way through my looooong long King to-be-read list, I decided to verge a bit away from his usual horror material (one can only read so many nightmare-susceptible novels in a row before needing a break.) Honestly, I didn't even know this would be a psychological thriller when I picked it up. All I knew was it was some Stephen King book about baseball.
The blurb on the back tells the reader that Blockade Billy was arguably one of the greatest baseball players in history, and yet was banned (and got the team he played on banned, too) from all record books of the season he played due to having "a secret darker than any pill or injection." Of course, this got my mind racing with what possibly could be so horrible to be given such a dramatic description as such (pretty much every horror book I've read has involved murder, so you'd think that'd be the first thing I'd jump to, right? wrong. why? because its King, therefore, I obviously needed to over complicate things.)
All in all, seeing how this story moved along was very enjoyable and, even though I didn't understand most of the baseball mumbo jumbo and what was going on, some parts still ended up being pretty exciting! The ending was also so satisfying in my opinion. It gave you a bit of what you'd expect, while also adding a twist or two alongside it just to give one last point to the protagonist.
This is a nice, light read, and I'd definitely recommend to anyone just wanting a quick story to read through in a sitting.
So basically, I was mostly clueless on the baseball lingo. Which, should make it even more impressive to how much I absolutely enjoyed this novella.
Nitpicking my way through my looooong long King to-be-read list, I decided to verge a bit away from his usual horror material (one can only read so many nightmare-susceptible novels in a row before needing a break.) Honestly, I didn't even know this would be a psychological thriller when I picked it up. All I knew was it was some Stephen King book about baseball.
The blurb on the back tells the reader that Blockade Billy was arguably one of the greatest baseball players in history, and yet was banned (and got the team he played on banned, too) from all record books of the season he played due to having "a secret darker than any pill or injection." Of course, this got my mind racing with what possibly could be so horrible to be given such a dramatic description as such (pretty much every horror book I've read has involved murder, so you'd think that'd be the first thing I'd jump to, right? wrong. why? because its King, therefore, I obviously needed to over complicate things.)
All in all, seeing how this story moved along was very enjoyable and, even though I didn't understand most of the baseball mumbo jumbo and what was going on, some parts still ended up being pretty exciting! The ending was also so satisfying in my opinion. It gave you a bit of what you'd expect, while also adding a twist or two alongside it just to give one last point to the protagonist.
This is a nice, light read, and I'd definitely recommend to anyone just wanting a quick story to read through in a sitting.