Nope!! That’s my thought on finishing this novel, just nope.

Rage is a novel about high school student Charlie Decker murdering a teacher and holding his classmate’s hostage. While the police try to negotiate with Charlie, he turns his classmates into a group therapy session about his woes. It’s a heavy premise, and unfortunately, it’s not well executed, partly because the bile that Charlie spills out is difficult to stomach.

It’s also an early work of King, while Rage was released after his first three novels research shows that it may be his first effort at writing a novel. This is slightly confused as other sources state The Long Walk is, but the style of writing in this feels much rougher. It’s this roughness that I struggled with mostly and has led me to coin the phase Headache Book, on account of actually getting a headache reading some of its passages.

Charlie’s opinions ooze from the sentences of this book like poisonous sulphur, to the point where this reader felt like King was on the side of Charlie. Rage is notorious for having been remove from publication following the discovery of copies in several school shooters lockers. While I agree with this choice it has led to the book taking on mystically kind of significance in the minds of die-hard fans. I wasn’t able to find a copy it until I stumbled across it in a charity book store at twenty-nine. I wonder sometimes if the same fans that revere this book associate its rarity with high quality. They shouldn’t, and really should only seek it to complete reading all his work, not for the content.

Rating: One Star

Tier: Headache Books

Companion Books: We Need To Talk About Kevin

Both novels deal with heinous acts of violence committed at high schools only We Need To Talk About Kevin tells its story well. Yes, both are horrifying, but the latter does not leave the reader feel like inflicted with a migraine.