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A review by meadforddude
Rage by Richard Bachman
2.0
A quick read that simply doesn't execute its premise in the most compelling fashion. Effectively, this is The Breakfast Club via King's peculiar viewpoint (I was surprised too), but King's empathy for his protagonist feels wildly misplaced, and the late-book implications that we've merely been subjected to the ramblings of an unreliable narrator are tantalizing but frustratingly under-realized.
In a way, I wish king *hadn't* taken this out of print, as the sheer banal mundanity of the after-school special dramatics successfully renders the taboo elements of shooting up a school maudlin and uninteresting. Since it's been withdrawn from publication, this book has acquired an air of transgression that's subsequently been conferred onto the act itself, lending it an outlaw thrill it doesn't deserve, which no doubt appeals to the disgruntled youth who considers it. But really there's no great way to reckon with this book.
It's not King's (or Bachman's) worst effort, I'm sure. At the very least, it's head and shoulders above Cell, my pick for the nadir of King's oeuvre.
In a way, I wish king *hadn't* taken this out of print, as the sheer banal mundanity of the after-school special dramatics successfully renders the taboo elements of shooting up a school maudlin and uninteresting. Since it's been withdrawn from publication, this book has acquired an air of transgression that's subsequently been conferred onto the act itself, lending it an outlaw thrill it doesn't deserve, which no doubt appeals to the disgruntled youth who considers it. But really there's no great way to reckon with this book.
It's not King's (or Bachman's) worst effort, I'm sure. At the very least, it's head and shoulders above Cell, my pick for the nadir of King's oeuvre.