Hello everyone, and welcome back to another book review!
Today I’m going to be talking about a short story Stephen King wrote back in the early 80’s, The Body.
Summary (Courtesy of Amazon):
It’s 1960 in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Ray Brower, a boy from a nearby town, has disappeared, and twelve-year-old Gordie Lachance and his three friends set out on a quest to find his body along the railroad tracks. During the course of their journey, Gordie, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio come to terms with death and the harsh truths of growing up in a small factory town that doesn’t offer much in the way of a future.
Overall, I would say The Body isn’t my favorite Stephen King book, but it wasn’t the worst book of his I read; it’s very much an average story for me. I enjoyed reading a short story by him, especially as I haven’t read any of his work in a while, so it was nice being able to continue exploring it further.
I thought there was a good amount of tension in it, even though it was a coming-of-age story about 13-year-olds going on a long trek to see a dead body in the woods, so it’s not something that would automatically have a lot of tension in it. I also found it interesting how King wrote the story as more of being the protagonist reflecting on this summer adventure with his friends as an adult, so we also got to see how the protagonist grew up, as well as his group of friends.
The Body is definitely quintessential Stephen King storytelling, so it’s a great short story to read, especially if you haven’t read a lot of his work before. If you haven’t read anything by him though, I’ll throw out a warning that he does use a lot of crude language/descriptions, and one of the characters does say the n-word (I know there are people who don’t like how King uses it in his stories, so I thought I would throw that out there). If these are things you don’t like in the books you read, I would not recommend this to you (or most of King’s work).
However, if you’re a fan of book-to-movie adaptations, this would be right up your alley. It’s the inspiration for the movie Stand By Me, so it’s a good book-reading to movie-watching experience, although from what I remember, it’s a pretty loose interpretation (I haven’t seen the movie in a few years, so this is based off my hazy memory of it).
| Highlights! |
| Source material for the movie Stand By Me (1986) |
| Great way to explore more of King’s work, especially for anyone not in the mood to read one of his longer novels like Salem’s Lot or Under the Dome. |
| A coming-of-age story exploring friendship and how it can evolve over a lifetime |
For this particular copy, I went to Barnes and Noble, and at the cafe, their $5 book deal was for The Body. Since I was already getting something, I figured, why not just get it, and went ahead and picked it up.
Although I got The Body at Barnes and Noble, you can also get it on Amazon, as well as at Blackwells, and Bookshop.org.*
*(Bookshop.org is my affiliate link, where I earn a 10% commission if you purchase through this link!)
That’s it for today!
Have you read The Body? What did you think about it? Have any similar books you’d like to recommend? Then let me know in the comments down below!
On that note, I’ll see you in the next post!
-Erin (:
Eclectic Erin 
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