Tag: Apt Pupil

Book Review – Different Seasons by Stephen King

Ryan1 Comment

Different Seasons

Different Seasons is a 1982 collection of four novellas by Stephen King. At the time, this book marked a bit of a departure from horror for King, the stories within telling more dramatic tales. Each novella is headed by a sectional title that assigns a season of the year to it: Hope Springs Eternal for “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, Summer of Corruption for “Apt Pupil”, Fall from Innocence for “The Body”, and A Winter’s Tale for “The Breathing Method”. In the first story, a wrongfully imprisoned convict manages to rise above his destitute fate, in the second a gifted teen becomes obsessed with the dark past of an elderly local, in the third four rambunctious boys go on a quest to find a dead body, and in the final a single mother-to-be goes beyond the natural in order to save the life of her baby.Read More »

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WWW Wednesday – July 22, 2020

Ryan4 Comments
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Different SeasonsGosh, I’ve gotten bad at getting these up early, huh? I’m still in the middle of reading Different Seasons by Stephen King. I haven’t made a huge amount of progress over the last little bit, but I did finish reading “Apt Pupil”, the longest novella in the book, so I’ve gotten over a significant hump of the book at least. It ended in a fairly predictable fashion, but goodness was it bleak. I did enjoy it as a thriller, but I suspect it won’t be standing out as my favourite story in this book. There wasn’t a lot of good to balance out the awfulness of the characters and what they get up to. The next story is “The Body”, which the film Stand By Me is based on, so I’m expecting a nice coming-of-age story. It’s so strange that three out of four of these novellas each went on to become a well known movie.

Recently Finished

Nothing for this week, I’m afraid. I actually haven’t read all the much over the last five days or so. I’d taken some time off (I work weekends), and apparently extra downtime doesn’t necessarily mean more reading.

Reading Next

Into the Unbounded NightI’ve still got a couple of volumes of The Immortal Hulk that need reading, never mind the numerous other graphic novels I could crack open. With some ARCs that I’ve received releasing soon, I should probably start one of them rather soon. So, I will probably be reading Into the Unbounded Night by Mitchell James Kaplan next. I want to be able to get it reviewed for August. I’ll have to start reading books in tandem, which I don’t usually do, if I want to stay on top of my to-read list for the year as well. I’m cautiously hopeful it will all work out.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – July 15, 2020

Ryan8 Comments
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Different SeasonsI’ve made fairly good headway in Different Seasons by Stephen King, having finished “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” and already well into “Apt Pupil”, the longest novella in the book. While the former was a rather uplifting story, if a bit dreary in spots, “Apt Pupil” is unrelentingly dark. A 13-year-old boy in the mid-1970s discovers that one of his neighbors is a Nazi war criminal living in America under a false identity. Instead of turning him in, however, he blackmails the decrepit old man into telling him all the “gooshy” details about running one of the most infamous death camps. This book may not be any sort of supernatural horror, but this story goes to some uncomfortable and frightening places. That being said, I’m enjoying it quite a lot as a psychological thriller.

Recently Finished

Through the WoodsThe other night I finished reading Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, a comic book collection of horror stories that I learned about rather recently. It was a fairly quick read, and at first I had some misgivings. The art is absolutely lovely, so I didn’t feel any disappointment in that respect, but the first story was a little unremarkable. These feelings were abated rather quickly as I got further into the book, though. One story in particular, “His Face All Red,” I absolutely loved. I was happy to discover after finishing the book that the author is not only Canadian, but also from Southern Ontario too, like myself. I should have a review up within the next week.

Reading Next

I’m still going to be chipping away at Different Seasons for the next little while, but along the way I’m going to continue reading volumes of The Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing et al. Beyond that, I’ve gotten some review requests and ARCs that I need to start getting to soon, so I’m thinking about starting one of those too.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.