Summer of Stephen
Title: The Body
Publishing Date: 1982 Length: 145 pages Start Date: May 16, 2018 End Date: May 22, 2018 My guess is that most people have seen Stand By Me, the movie version of The Body. I, however, am not one of those people. Stand By Me is one of those movies I always meant to watch, but never got around to it. Now I’m glad I waited, because it let me read the novella first. And I really liked The Body. Though the opening lines tell the reader that the main characters are going to see a dead body, this story never really takes the creepy turn people expect from Stephen King’s writing. There are a few parts that have an ominous tone, but for the most part, it’s just a solid coming-of-age story. One of the best parts (due to my love of suspense) involves the boys walking along the railroad tracks and having to cross a bridge. It’s immediately obvious that a train is going to come while they’re still on the bridge, but King isn’t shy about killing off important characters, so there’s always an element of fear involved in scenes like this. Unfortunately, King also kind of ruins the suspense of that moment. I can’t remember the exact moment in the book, but there’s a point where the main character mentally narrates that none of the boys died that summer. So from there you don’t have to worry about anything too bad happening to any of them because you already know they’re going to survive. Since I haven’t seen the movie yet, I can’t comment on how similar it is to the novella or which I like better. However, if Stand By Me remains even just mostly faithful to the source material, I have no doubt that I’ll love it.
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Jacinta M. CarterProfessional Book Nerd Archives
July 2019
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