Title: Christine Author: Stephen King
Series: N/A
Published: 1983
Length: 748 pages
Warnings: profanity, violence, graphic blood & guts, sex references
Source: Library
Other info: A film was made based on this book in the same year.
Summary : Christine, blood-red, fat, and finned, was twenty. Her promise lay all in her past. Greedy and big, she was Arnie`s obsession, a `58 Plymouth Fury. Broken down, but not finished.
There was still power in her - a frightening power that leaked like sump oil, staining and corrupting. A malign power that corroded the mind and turned ownership into Possession. Review: This is the one with that evil car. Somewhere near the beginning, Arnie buys Christine, a twenty something year old blood red car from Roland LeBay. Soon after, LeBay dies "suddenly".
Christine is Arnie's obsession. Even his best friend Dennis and girlfriend Leigh don't compare. Then a group of boys vandalise Christine, and it's hard to say who's angrier: Arnie or Christine. Because while Arnie just does what a normal boy would do, ie scream and swear at the boys who wrecked his prize possession, Christine takes it worse. A lot worse. As in, come-to-life-in-middle-of-the-night-and-run-the-yobs-over-or-maybe-force-them-to-crash-their-car-of-which-the-gas-tank-explodes worse. And on top of the car not behaving it-er, HERself, Arnie isn't acting like his normal self. Something else seems to be taking him over. What, or who, can it be?
I picked this up with high hopes. I read Carrie(reviewed by Katy some time this week), and was given orders from Westy to read Christine. And seeing as she tends to have good reading taste(Lord of the Flies excepted) and I was going to read more Stephen King anyway, so I needed somewhere to start. So far, so good.
It all gets started quite quickly. It's not long before Arnie buys Christine off LeBay and becomes rather obsessed with it. And then it all slows down. Well,quite a few things happen. But the first part is mainly run up which, while nice, gets slightly sameish. the incident to set it all off happens almost halfway through. From there on, the action doesn't stop. First to go is Moochie, run over thrice, then three boys driven off track and blown up, and then a few more deaths. Dennis and Leigh realise it's the car, and I loved seeing them plan and attempt to get rid of Christine. My favourite part of the plan is the fact they use a truck called Petunia. Why? They're using vehicles with names. Why do I like that? I don't know.
Arnie was an interesting character. His character was fairly well developed and the end bit regarding him was a shame.
I didn't see the point of Dennis's accident. However, it provided an interesting dynamic for the final showdown.
The action bits(the death scenes)were really good. I found myself rereading them loads of times to get an idea of what was happening, from the victims',bystanders' and Christine's point of view. And is it wrong that throughout these scenes, I wasn't sacred at all? And that I just found myself thinking 'Go for it, Christine!'?
The biggest disappointment was the lack of scaryness. I never felt really creeped out by the events in the way that I should have done.
Despite this, this is a really good book. It's mainly action with a little scare to it. The writing was easy to get through, and the plot will keep you hooked throughout.
Overall: Strength 4 tea to a book that will force you to never look at cars the same way ever again.
