Blaze

This one has been on my shelf for a while, but I've never gotten around to reading it until now.

But, as I said in my last book post, all my Stephen King holds were coming in at once on Libby. So, this was what came up next. I should have found something else, especially considering that I disliked the Richard Bachman book I read last.

This one wasn't as bad. It wasn't good, but it wasn't that bad. Blaze is a bit of an homage to the Steinbeck novel Of Mice and Men. The main character, Blaze, is the Lennie of the book. He was abused as a child, suffered a head injury, and came out of it mentally disabled. His partner in crime...yes, the guy was named George...died a few months before the start of the book. The two had been planning their biggest hit of all, kidnapping a rich guy's kid and getting the ransom from it. But now, Blaze is left rudderless. He tries to pull the scam on his own, but he doesn't have the intellect to manage it.

The book is sentimental and cute, but not particularly good. It's not terrible or depressing like the other Bachman Books that I mentioned in my last post. This one was written by King in the early days of his career, but turned down by the publisher. He decided to put it out back in 2007 as a Bachman novel, but it doesn't really feel very Bachman-esque. Which made it a little more pleasant, but it did still have the sad ending.

I can't really say much about it. It's probably good that King didn't put it out as his follow-up to Carrie, because the best I can say about it is meh.