Being a true Mainer, while my mother was pregnant with me, she was reading a book by Stephen King. Specifically she was reading The Dark Half by Stephen King. In that book there is a character named Shayla and that is where my name came from. Growing up in Maine already gives you a sense of closeness with Mr. King but having him be the reason for my namesake always drew me even closer to him. In fact, for my 23rd birthday I was gifted with Stephen King’s personal copy of The Dark Half that he signed for me. I grew up watching many Stephen King shows and movies and read a few books. My favorite book of all time being The Long Walk by Stephen King, himself. All in all, however, I’ve only read about 5 of Mr. King’s books in total. I feel like this weird connection and fascination I have with him has ultimately only led me to one place. And that place is right here, preparing to read all his books. With all honesty, I get crazy ideas like this all the time but only seldom do I see anyt
Before reading: I've heard of Blaze because it was always listed under the Richard Bachman novels. That is about as far as my knowledge on this book goes. Digging into it, I learned that it was written in the 70's, it is King's version of Of Mice and Men, and he brought it back to life after being inspired by The Colorado Kid. And with that....let's go. After reading: That was...a book. Okay, okay, it honestly wasn't that bad but it was a real struggle for me to get through. The writing was fine and the characters were enticing, it just didn't do it for me. The fact that it was referencing Of Mice and Men was so in your face that I wish I was just reading that book instead. That was just a bit much for me. I found the "now" parts of the story to be more enticing than the "past" parts. The story would get going and then all of a sudden we were in the past and it just dragged on. This was a short book and it took me a long time to read and I