In this #1 national bestseller, “master storyteller” (Houston Chronicle) Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can only be one winner—the one that survives. In the near future, when America has become a police state, one hundred boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded … be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules—keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you’re out—permanently.
A “psychologically dark tale with commentary on society, teenage life, and cultural entertainment, The Long Walk is still poignant decades after its original publication” (Publishers Weekly). This edition features an introduction by Stephen King on “The Importance of Being Bachman.”
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This book was really compelling…for about the first fifty pages. The writing hooked me straight away, and I kept turning the pages eager for some clue as to why this walk was happening, what the society was like that would put boys through this, why only boys participated. But nope. It really is just 350 pages of 100 boys doing the Long Walk until there’s only one survivor who gets whatever he wants.
Yes, King/Bachman does a great job at making you understand the pain and mental strain the box are going through, but it’s just a book about a walk. Nothing really happens other than the swapping of a few jokes, insults, and stories. And I just couldn’t suspend reality enough to think (even if your life depended on it) that anyone could maintain a four mile an hour pace hour after hour for well over 100 miles.
This would have been a great novella, but it just didn’t have any sort of story arc for a full novel.
One of the most pointless depressing books I’ve ever read. And I am a huge Stephen King fan.
I gave this novel two and a half stars.
This book didn’t work for me, and I nearly DNF’d it. But I digress for the moment.
This novel is about a sick kind of lottery where 100 boys get chosen for The Long Walk. The concept is simple. Start walking, don’t stop. If you do, you get a warning. You only get three warnings before … well I bet you can put two and two together.
The reader follows along on a specific Long Walk, where the main character and other boys begin a slow descent into madness. This is kind of ironic, because I felt the same way at several points during this book.
To keep things positive, what I think worked best was the concept and characters.
The concept was intriguing to me. It had a Hunger Games feel to it minus some elements. We get little snippets of history here and there that hint of a darker gameshow history for this world. Also throughout the book we get tidbits of information from the characters. I did enjoy getting to know the world a bit better, but concept isn’t enough to make a book great.
The characters each had their own backstories and I think they were well thought out. Everyone signs up for The Long Walk for their own reasons, and that was interesting to find out. I believe this book was heavily character-based, which is a big turn off for me with books. Characters and an intriguing concept are still not enough to make a book great.
Where I really struggled with this book was plot and flow.
Plot was a bit abysmal if I’m being honest. We got this great lead in to The Long Walk, and then when it starts happening, well, nothing really happens. They walk … and walk and walk. Sure the boys talk to each other along the way, but that gets old pretty quickly and there are too many characters to get to know to keep track of. The flow got confusing in spots, and even more so when they start to lose it.
Truth be told, there just wasn’t enough going on. They walk from city to city as their numbers diminish and their sanity is compromised.
There were way too many descriptions of nature. Throughout the book, I cringed at how much filler King crammed in here. I really didn’t care about what the road ahead of them looked like, I wanted something interesting to happen. In my opinion this would’ve been better as a novella with a lot of filler cut out.
Ultimately, The Long Walk was a disappointment for me. Only you can decide if this book for you, but I cannot recommend it due to poor flow and lack of plot.
Happy Reading!
Different.
“The soldiers on the back of the slow-moving halftrack raised their guns. The crowd gasped, as if they hadn’t known this was the way it was, and the Walkers gasped, as if they hadn’t know, and Garraty gasped with them, but of course he had known, of course they had all known, it was very simple…”
So this is my second read of this book and I must say, I loved it just as much the second time as I did the first time.
The Long Walk is simple in the way stories go. One hundred young men are picked to just walk, last one standing wins whatever their heart desires.
It’s such a basic idea for a story, but King executes it so well that I couldn’t put the book down, I was drawn in chapter to chapter.
The ending was one of the better endings in a book I have read because it really kept me thinking about it long after the walk had ended.
I couldn’t put it down. I felt drawn to the characters and wondered what would happen next to them.
This book, to me, I could not put down. While parts are slow and/or predictable, it’s gone to a world that makes you wonder, why do they allow this. But you can’t stop reading.
One of the first King stories I ever read as a kid and it has stuck with me my entire life.
It’s a must read, kept my heart pumping for the teens
One of my favorite Stephen King books. It’s heartbreaking and scary.