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Blaze

 

Blaze
Written by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)

About 260 pages
Originally published in 2007
Rate 2/5

This book has a lot of really interesting lore to it. Hopefully my summary of the lore is as accurate as possible. Stephen King wrote under the pen name Richard Bachman because he wanted to be able to write stories without people knowing who it was. He did this as a sort of experiment to see whether his book sells remained the same, went down, or went up. No one really bought any Richard Buchman books at first until he was outed as Stephen King. When that happened, Richard Bachman literally died and they found an unpublished manuscript in a hidden box with his things. Pretty elaborate stuff.

What is Blaze about?

Blaze is a victim of domestic violence. After countless times being thrown down the stairs by his father at a young age Blaze gets a huge dent in his head that disables his mental abilities. Blaze eventually falls into the wrong crowd and learns that the easiest way to make money is to resort to a life full of crime. 

Blaze and his good friend George used to be partners until George died. Before George died, they had planned to attempt to kidnap, Blaze plans to carry out the crime alone.

My thoughts on Blaze

This story didn't really have any supernatural elements and so it was a little bit easier to visualize. However, I have been having a hard time keeping the visual in my head, that's how it's been going with most of Stephen King's writing though.

This was a interesting story, but wasn't as sublime as his other works have felt. It's pretty sad and upsetting, but it didn't feel profound. Towards the end of the story it was pretty intense, but I was truthfully a little bored.

This story was a Of Mice Of Men retelling and I haven't ever read that, so maybe if I read that it would make the story more interesting.

Quotes

"It was funny how little things could be so perfect and no one ever saw them." (15)

"The stars, there were so many, and he knew they were there before him, and they would be there after him. That was sort of awful and sort of wonderful." (30)

"We take our comfort where we can." (190)

"There was so sun that day, and no mourners. Expect for the birds." (259)

Links

stephenking.com
Amazon: Blaze

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