Read in The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King 
 Looks like I averaged 10.5 pages a day with this. Goddam tax season. 
 2.5 stars rounded up to three. 
 There's a big to-do about this book because it's been linked to some school shootings, though some of those links are tenuous at best. King let it go out of print and is glad it's gone according to the preface in Blaze. I think that's a shame, but I understand his feelings. It must be hard to live with the knowledge that several someones may have been inspired by your work to commit mass murder. But let's not get carried away. When tragic things happen people often look for underlying reasons and other places to lay the blame, but they often skate right past the core and that's the malefactor himself. I have a feeling that all the real life shootings linked to this book would have occurred anyway because the person who committed them was nuts. Or disturbed. Use whatever word you like. Of course, there's no way to prove that, but them's my thoughts on the matter. Stephen King is not responsible for the Heath High School shootings, Michael Carneal was. Nor is he responsible for any of the others. 
 This brings to mind a shooting at my Alma Mater which occurred after I'd graduated, and I just realized it'll be 10 years ago next month... Wow, time flies... I'm referring to the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007. The incident hit close to home for me, so I dug into it rather deeply and I was shocked to discover that the person I related to most in the whole incident was the killer. He had written some stories and a manifesto I read, and I understood his feelings because they mirrored some of my own from back in the day. (It took some work to deal with that realization). But I never killed anyone over any of it, or even plotted it. Was my rage not as acute as Seung-Hui Cho's? Or did I just choose to treat and channel it differently? There's really no way to know, and making the comparison is fair to neither of us, so I'm sorry I brought it up. 
 Here's what Stephen King had to say about the Tech incident: "Certainly in this sensitized day and age, my own college writing--including a short story called 'Cain Rose Up' and the novel Rage--would have raised red flags, and I'm certain someone would have tabbed me as mentally ill because of them..." Cho wrote similar stories and killed a bunch of peeps. Stephen King just let his stories be stories and went on with his day. I don't know what the driving force behind those stories was, but I expect the characters were inspired by people he knew. And believe you me, if I could be prosecuted for my thoughts I'd be executed, cremated, my ashes divided into seven portions, each encased in ten foot cubes of concrete sealed in steel, and those scattered to the corners of the Earth just out of the fear that I might come back. No St. Helena for me, as they say. 
 King started this when he was in high school, finished it when he was 23/24, and it shows. It's less a story and more a teenage fantasy. It's the kind of stuff I think about when I get my knickers in a twist over somebody and am harboring a resentment. But fear not; like Stephen King I've never hauled off and killed anyone over it. Hell, I've never even been in a fist fight before. I've always used my mouth to get out of those (though it was normally my mouth that almost got me into them in the first place, but that's neither here nor there). 
 The story itself is pretty good, but you'll need some major suspension of disbelief to get through it. The reactions of the classmates are quite unrealistic. We pretty much have (view spoiler)[instant Stockholm syndrome (hide spoiler)], and I just wasn't buying it. Plus, after the classmates (view spoiler)[turn on Ted at the end and do whatever it is it do to him, he is catatonic for the rest of his life (we assume) (hide spoiler)]. I can't think of anything they could've done that would elicit that kind of reaction in a mostly normal boy, even a gang rape (which I don't believe happened). Sure, he was an asshole and had some secrets, but that's the case for the majority of teenage boys. Like I said, this feels like a fantasy SK had over some jerk, and he came up with an "I'll show him" tale. In fact, I have one of those myself tucked away somewhere which I wrote in college... I wonder if I can find that, or if I even really want to... I bet the writing is pretty rough. 
 The side stories from Charlie (the main character who holds the class hostage) and the other classmates were enjoyable, but how things play out in the classroom... Sorry, just not buying it. However, I read this when I was 38. I could see my teenage/twenty-some-year-old self enjoying this much more, and also not hauling off and killing a bunch of shitters because I'd read it; let's be clear on that. And I don't think the book is as bad as people make it out to be. "Bad" meaning inducing-one-to-shoot-up-a-school. It's always just a couple of jerks that have to ruin everything for the rest of us. 
 This story is fine, but nothing to write home about. It has many of the hallmarks of an early writer, but you can still see a lot of raw potential. Jeeze, what talent, but this book just tries too hard. I could see him trying to slip in some literary techniques I don't fully understand, but it's clunky. He smooths all those things out throughout his career. 
 One more note on the rating: I read this at a time where I'm working long days and am less inclined to be lenient on flaws, especially if they grate on me. Still, this is a great first effort and enjoyable if you don't take it too seriously.