Richard Bachman – DaneCobain.com

Title: Holes

Author: Louis Sachar

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 234

Rating 4/5

This started out super promising, and the idea of troubled kids being forced to dig holes every day reminded me of The Long Walk by Stephen King, writing under his pseudonym of Richard Bachman. The entire first half of the book was a solid 5/5 all of the way.

The problem for me was that the ending let it down, and I think it ended up focusing too heavily on the mysteries of the past when I wanted to see more of what the author had to say about society. There were some great observations here and it was certainly food for thought, and it almost rivals The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton when it comes to books about troubled youth. Almost, but not quite.

All in all, I’d still recommend reading this, but I do think that while it was good, it had the potential to be great but it let itself down. With that said, Sachar did an excellent job, and while this book isn’t perfect, it’s damn close. It’s just what I needed after reading a book that I enjoyed much less than I was expecting it to, and it made for a pretty good palate cleanser. Go ahead and check it out if you’re able to find a copy. Do it.

Click here to buy Holes.

Stephen King/Richard Bachman – The Long Walk | Review

Title: The Long Walk

Author: Stephen King/Richard Bachman

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 246

Rating: 4.5/5

The Long Walk has a lot of hype and I’ve heard from quite a few die-hard Stephen King fans that this is one of their favourites of his novels. That meant that I already had high expectations going into it, and while it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting it to be, I still enjoyed it. I especially liked the concept, which is reminiscent of a cross between a battle royal and the forced death marches of the Nazi Party during the final solution.

Basically, the idea is that we have 100 teenage kids who all have to keep walking until there’s only one left standing. If people stop walking or if they fall below a certain pace, they get a bullet to the head. And that’s all you need to know.

My only real complaint about this is the ending, but it’s still better than some of the others that I’ve seen from King and we all know at this point that he’s not the best when it comes to the way he finishes his novels. Here, the journey itself is pretty much the point of the novel, and so it doesn’t really matter. I think I still prefer The Running Man out of the Bachman books, but this is definitely a close second. And I understand why people like it.