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Rage
3rd Round of King books
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Rage Book 4
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Angie, Constant Reader
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Sep 30, 2025 02:39PM
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I am in! I haven't read this one so the oldest King novel unread for me. A notorious novel for sure.
*Spoilers eventually.* On a list that I had, The Shining was after Rage, so since I had to read a book with a student as the main character for the prompt, I opted to read Rage in September and The Shining in October. I guess I’m just a rule breaker. Once again, the story was no where near what I was expecting. I definitely pictured much more gory deaths and a lot more of them tbh. I enjoyed Charlie’s flashbacks as I feel it helped kinda set a tone for who he was and what he’d endured in his life, although I don’t feel it was harder or worse than what other kids wind up going through in their young life. I almost feel like the kids respected Charlie, sure they were afraid of him hurting them, but he gave them a lot of free will as well. Smoking, changing their seats, letting them converse amongst each other, using the bathroom (and coming back afterwards.) I can’t see a lot of kids having the chance to escape from a situation like that, and then not. Towards the last few chapters, I was feeling a Lord of the Flies vibe. Do you think so? Also, I hated how the story at the very end just kinda trailed off and then it was over. I feel like there was definitely room for some more conclusive chapters. Thanks for reading!
I just read this last month. I expected it to be gorier. I also didn't expect the other kids to behave the way that they did. Overall, I did like it. The flashbacks were perfect for showing what Charlie was like leading up to the event. King is just a great story teller.
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Thank you !!!
My first ever banned book. Let’s go.
Just managed to get my hands on a copy. Will be reading it once I’m done with finders keepers and you like it darker
Yeah, this was different from what I was expecting. Not the most disturbing King novel I've read, but the real world parallels is why it's so controversial.It is dark though. King does a good job in dealing with the adolescent frustration of the protagonist and his classmates. King developing the ability to write adolescents so well early on. The novel's structure and style however is a bit clunky compared to later King works in my opinion.
3.5/5 for me.
I read Rage last year and found it to be excellent.If you are looking for an audiobook copy try YouTube, which had options, as well as Spotify. There are several individuals who narrate books online for free, some of them are even illustrated and scored.
Happy reading!
I decided to reread this novel for this group read even though I didn’t like it the first time I had tackled it. It was more than 20 years ago, so I thought it could hit me differently this time.It is a quick, short novel (novella length) so I wasn’t struggling at any point. Nevertheless, my impressions are even worse than I assumed they would be.
I don’t feel obliged to like each and every book by King. In my opinion there is very little to appreciate in “Rage”.
Character work is extremely poor compared to King’s trade mark mastery in that area. Charlie is just a huge “emptiness”, a spoiled mommy’s boy without any interesting or redeeming features. It is evident that King was still in his early days writing about children and coming of age stories. Compared to much of his later works this novel reads like the first draft or preparatory text. The episodes that are used to build his character (hunting with his father, broken windows, fight after the party, first sexual experience…) are very mild, not impactful at all. Surely not enough to “explain” or “justify” his destructive behavior.
Other characters are too shallow and not memorable in any way. I suppose there wasn’t enough “time” to develop them properly. And here we come to the crucial point of criticism.Everything that happens after the killing of two teachers is totally and completely unrealistic. There is no chance at all to suspend
Oppsss my comment is cut off:)I’ll finish it briefly.
Everything that happens after the killings is totally unrealistic. If we assume that the narrative is based in realism with no supernatural elements (we are not given any proofs to think otherwise) there no chance that the students would behave the way they did, chit chatting for 3 hours while a dead teacher is stretched on the floor in front of them.
I understand King’s intention to go for a specific shock effect but it reads way to cartoonish and shallow. I will not even touch the climax/ending which is an additional insult to common sense and the way those situations are handled in practice.
Bottom line, in order to like some books more and adore many of his works with all my heart and soul there have to be some lesser reads which feel half-baked and poor. I suppose that is only normal.
I'm late to the party but I'm finally starting this one. I've never read it so I'm excited to get into it!
I just finished this and I really enjoyed it! I thought it was pretty disturbing. I also thought the writing was excellent.
Interesting supplemental read to go with this if anyone is interested:When Stephen king banned his own book he also wrote an extended article on guns. It is free on kindle and can be found here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B53IW9W?...
So this, is another re-read for me (maybe more than once). Although this was a controversial book, I had absolutely no problems with it (as I stated in my review). I think this book shows the depth of King's characters, and which definitely showed up in his later writings.
Just finished this. I was all in until the kids started acting the way they did in the final act. It was a bit too far fetched for me. The flashback scenes were the best. This one was my least fave of King’s books so far: 1. Carrie
2. The Shining
3. ‘Salem’s Lot
4. Rage
