I must admit that I had a hard time reading this without a lot of bias since one of my top five favorite movies, Stand By Me is based on it. I had seen the movie before reading the story, and I'm afraid this is one of the rare cases where the movie is better than the book. There were a couple of changes between the story and the movie. (view spoiler)[One is that Chris Chambers has the gun at the end instead of Gordy LeChance. And though I'm not a Rob Reiner fan, he is one hell of a director, and I like him giving Gordy the gun (hide spoiler)]. Stand By Me seems like a polished up version of "The Body." That movie is, after all, an incredibly tough act to follow. Also, there were other interludes in the story that weren't in the movie. For example, Gordy tells some of the other stories that he had written, and they kind of sucked and detracted from the main plot itself. It was nicely done in the movie with just the one story about Davie Hogan and the pie eating contest. And there I go again, comparing it to the movie. 
 The story isn't bad, I don't think. Just do yourself a favor and watch the movie instead.