I am not really a big comment leaver but this doesn't mean I don't enjoy your reviews! :) xx
I am not really a big comment leaver but this doesn't mean I don't enjoy your reviews! :) xx
Member since:19.12.2005
Reviews:102
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Clayton Blaisdell Jnr was born with all his faculties. In fact he was pretty brainy for his age and read books with a passion. However one Saturday morning, not long after Clayton Jnr had started school, his father threw him down the stairs three times for eating biscuits in the living room. He was comatose and the doctors said he wouldn't wake up - but he did! This was not new behaviour for little Clayton to endure but was the worst of his life so far, and he subsequently ended up living in the State's protection in Hetton House Boys Home.
Things never improved much for Clayton, who after the "accident" was nowhere near as bright as he once had been, although his huge hulking body made up for any shortfalls in his brain when it came to looking after himself. He became known as Blaze and the name stuck.
Eventually escaping the hell-hole he finally made a friend for life - George Rackley. George was good to him and they ran cons together, making an existence on the expense of others, while never causing anyone any physical harm. But then George died and Blaze was left alone to look after himself.
He finally decided to run the biggest
job of his life - one that George had planned before he died. Kidnapping! He could get $2 million and live out his life in Acapulco. But Blaze never counted on enjoying the experience quite the way he did.
I was really pleased to get this for Christmas as I had last received Lisey's Story by Stephen King and just couldn't get into it enough to get past about the first quarter of the book it was so shockingly boring. I love King and therefore leapt into this as soon as I had finished the last book I had been reading.
I wasn't disappointed either. There was nothing really supernatural or horrific about this story, nothing really trade mark to King's other stuff but it was a really emotional story for me. I really felt sympathy for Blaze, from the start when he was being physically abused by his father, right though everything he endured to the ending. I found the story grew with him and the more you read the deeper you felt involved with Blaze's life and thoughts.
For a simple man, Blaze had a lot of thoughts running through his head. His relationship with George, even after George's death was testament to the true friendship he had found with him and the level of dependency he had bestowed on his friend. I can even imagine how Blaze must have felt when George died, through the personality I knew Blaze had.
Even though the theme behind the story is quite shocking in terms of punishments for children and crimes committed, I found it to be a gentle book really. I was never so caught up in the action that I felt swept away, rather swept away by the emotional side of things. I think this is probably because it is mainly a story about Blaze and Blaze alone. He has conversations with people through the pages but it is mainly a story of his life rather than a here and now event. I found this very relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable.
Mostly I enjoy books with a fair few characters in them to really bring things alive and keep them interesting, but in this instance Blaze and the various friends and enemies he had along the way were more than enough to satisfy.
There was one chapter that described Blaze's summer one year while still a pupil at Hetton House. He and a group of other boys from his school had been selected to spend some weeks on a berry picking farm. The owner of the farm was extremely kind to the kids he employed through the summer and they all had such a unique and unexpectedly happy summer there, Blaze especially, that I nearly cried when it all ended. It was written with such emotion and made me really feel that everything was happening. Blaze, even for the huge young man he had grown into, could not control his emotions through this chapter either and it was very moving. Both the happy and sad times were written about in such detail that I would defy anyone to read that chapter and not feel moved.
I loved reading about his kidnapping ordeal as well. With Blaze being a simple mind after the stairs incident, it was obvious he was not cut out for this sort of crime but he did the best he could. Without giving anything away I knew things would pan out the way they did and I was not disappointed that it was transparent. More the opposite actually, I felt myself reading on because I just knew how Blaze would be feeling and wanted clarification that he was indeed experiencing what I had guessed.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It wasn't stand out amazing in every chapter, but every one kept me hooked on reading either about current day events, or what had happened to him as he grew up and I never felt bored or tempted to skip through. Not all King fans will enjoy this as there is no horror really and nothing more supernatural than Blaze talking to and hearing, his dead buddy. However, as a King fan myself, I thorough enjoyed it and it will be stored with my other King books in case I ever feel like a revisit.
In case anyone doesn't realise Richard Bachman is Stephen King's psuedonym. x
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Clay is one big mother, but his capers are strictly small-time until his mentor introduces ... more
him to the one big score that every small-timer dreams of: kidnap. But now the brains of the operation has died and Blaze is alone with a baby as hostage. The crime of the century just turned into a race against time in the white hell of the Maine woods.
Feb 12th, 2008
(Feb 13th, 2008)
very helpful by (100%):
