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164th out of 166 books
—
334 voters
Apt Pupil: A Novella in Different Seasons
The audio tie-in to the Tristar movie release this October, starring Sit Ian McKellen, David Schwimmer, and Brad Renfro is the story of Todd Bowden, a 16-year-old all-American high school student who is stunned when the Holocaust is addressed and then dismissed in the classroom after only a few short weeks. Todd sets out to research the period and finds Kurt Dussander, a N...more
Audio CD, 7 pages
Published
January 8th 2009
by Penguin Audio
(first published 1983)
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Stephen King says that he wrote this novel in 2 weeks just to "decompress" after he finished "The Shining". Evocative characters, a real sense of creeping madness and a twisty plot with more convolutions than a fire at a Slinky factory make this one of the author's best books. Too bad they muffed the film version.
This book is pure evil, but I truly enjoyed it. Todd Bowden is a paper boy/high school student who discovers his neighbor, Kurt Dussander, is a wanted Nazi war criminal. Basically Todd becomes engrossed in Dussander's terrible war crime stories and goes over to his house frequently. The creepy part is that Todd has no intention of turning Dussander in..he just wants more and more information out of him. In hindsight, the only thing I really didn't like about the book was that the plot was highly...more
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Apt Pupil: First half, incredible. Second half, um...
The first half of Apt Pupil was creepily and absolutely compelling. King has a way of presenting the twisted and horrific in a way that urges a reader to keep reading, keep reading, keep reading--like watching a mangled body being extracted from a smashed car. You can't look away no matter how grotesque it is.
Sadly, also in true King form, somewhere in the middle of the book, the story took a turn, and the soft porn and profanity that King is...more
The first half of Apt Pupil was creepily and absolutely compelling. King has a way of presenting the twisted and horrific in a way that urges a reader to keep reading, keep reading, keep reading--like watching a mangled body being extracted from a smashed car. You can't look away no matter how grotesque it is.
Sadly, also in true King form, somewhere in the middle of the book, the story took a turn, and the soft porn and profanity that King is...more
3 likes · like · see review
I don’t know what my fascination is with Stephen King. The fact all of his fifty-plus books have been worldwide bestsellers. The fact he wrote The Long Walk, a great short story, at the age of eighteen. The fact the paperback rights to his debut novel Carrie (though actually the fourth he’d written) was picked up in 1974 by New American Library for $400,000. The fact he has a seemingly limitless imagination. The fact every novel feels unique, the characters ridiculously vivid, the plots engrossi...more
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Different Seasons consists of 4 novellas & all of them are basically character studies.It firmly established King as a pure literary genius & quashed all naysayers who had him typecast ed as a horror writer.It shows off the width & variety of human emotions that King could easily write about without ever sounding cheesy or unrealistic & how his style makes us care for characters whom we otherwise would have hated.I would provide a brief synopsis of each of the 4 novellas & wh...more
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While not a typical horror of monsters or supernatural or even of things jumping out at you at night, I'd have to say this novella is probably the scariest thing I've ever read. Not because it made me hide under the covers while reading it (again, not that type of horror), but because it made me afraid of what a "normal" human being can become and what they can do with the "right" influence.
I read this a long time ago (maybe 20 years or so?) and it has stuck with me all this time. When the movie...more
I read this a long time ago (maybe 20 years or so?) and it has stuck with me all this time. When the movie...more
Talvez a obra literária mais perturbadora de Stephen King. O horror é demasiado real...
This novella was really disgusting at points. It's an assaultive work, and it hits all the senses with a sledge hammer.
On its face, it's a story about how easy it is to lose your morality; one thing after another, and sooner or later, you're an empty human being with nothing left but the desire to do awful things just to make the blood move again. It's about what it's like to lose everything good inside yourself, and know that you'll never get it back. You almost feel bad for the sinister charac...more
On its face, it's a story about how easy it is to lose your morality; one thing after another, and sooner or later, you're an empty human being with nothing left but the desire to do awful things just to make the blood move again. It's about what it's like to lose everything good inside yourself, and know that you'll never get it back. You almost feel bad for the sinister charac...more
Apt Pupil is one of four novellas featured in Stephen King’s Different Seasons. The story ‘aptly’ captioned The Summer of Corruption, revolves around the lives of a teenage boy and his dangerous acquaintance with an old Nazi War Criminal. What starts off as relationship born out of the boy’s curiosity eventually culminates into a mutual parasitism. As the two protagonists journey through this unhealthy relationship, it unleashes their inhumane side that has been dormant for many years. When peop...more
It's hard for me to review Stephen King, because there isn't much to his stories except what he presents to you point-blank. He simply writes amazing stories, so to delve into them and dissect them somehow seems to ruin them. I think I enjoy his writing so much because it is so much like a classic story, one to be told on a camp out (as terribly ridiculous as that sounds). So I'll review the stories, but I'm not going to analyze the book as I would others.
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redempti...more
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redempti...more
A good King novella, with really effed up characters, but since it is in the same collection of short stories as Shawshank, it only gets 3 stars. I would like it if you could give half stars.
This is about an all american kid, Todd, who realizes that a nazi war criminal lives down the street from him when he is 14. He forces the nazi to tell him all about the camps and how he used to kill people under threat of exposing him. Eventually the nazi threatens him with revealing to everyone that the ki...more
This is about an all american kid, Todd, who realizes that a nazi war criminal lives down the street from him when he is 14. He forces the nazi to tell him all about the camps and how he used to kill people under threat of exposing him. Eventually the nazi threatens him with revealing to everyone that the ki...more
It probably really deserves 4 stars. I always get stuck on whether the rating indicates my enjoyment of the book, or its craft. In this case I couldn't quite stomach giving such a nasty little book 4 stars, but you know, King sure knows his craft. This is a tightly wound little book, well paced, and the all-American gee shucks early 70's setting forms the perfect backdrop for the characters' chilling evil/nastiness. But it's also a gross-out book, and the gross-outs ... well, I understand they'r...more
I had never read a Stephen King novel before, because I figured his work to be juvenile and trashy, and it is. It was also very creepy and entertaining. It is King's crudity, his low-brow weak spot; his power in depicting the horror of the scatological, whether sexual or visceral, that also makes him a master of horror. (This is quite interesting, and apparent in other writer's of the macabre from Poe onward, but to fully unpack it would take a medium length essay) And he is unparalleled in pain...more
I reread this because I saw part of “The Shawshank Redemption”—an excellent film—and started thinking about his collection of novellas. Plus, I was still slogging my way through “The Civil War” and felt like I really needed something light.
The book consists of four novellas:
“Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”—A hardened con in Shawshank Prison tells the story of a friend he made and how Rita Hayworth helped him discover hope.
“Apt Pupil”—The All-American Boy confronts his elderly neighbor wh...more
The book consists of four novellas:
“Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”—A hardened con in Shawshank Prison tells the story of a friend he made and how Rita Hayworth helped him discover hope.
“Apt Pupil”—The All-American Boy confronts his elderly neighbor wh...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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I have had this book sitting on my shelf for a long time and I finally decided to pick it up. I am usually not a fan of short stories because I feel you don't have enough time to connect with the characters, but since these were novellas and a little longer than what is considered to be a short story it sounded promising. I ended up really liking Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, sort of liking Apt Pupil, and not liking The Body and The Breathing Method much.
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Red...more
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Red...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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I read this as part of Stephen Kings, Different Seasons collection of novellas. I had never read a Stephen King book before these.
Unfortunately, this story didn't really grab me and I was kind of waiting for something interesting to happen. Some of the story which relives the war crimes and stiff is a bit grim and I didn't feel that it was a very realistic story. With it being short though I managed to read through and get to the end, although it was a bot of an anti climax.
Unfortunately, this story didn't really grab me and I was kind of waiting for something interesting to happen. Some of the story which relives the war crimes and stiff is a bit grim and I didn't feel that it was a very realistic story. With it being short though I managed to read through and get to the end, although it was a bot of an anti climax.
I'm glad I decided to try this before giving up on Stephen King completely. I had really enjoyed the movie based on this story and I thought the story was worth trying even after several King failures.
For me this book really aptly demonstrates the principle that you can't lie a little, can't dip your toe into depravity, and it does it with King's considerable skill. It starts out simple enough. An early 1970's pre-teen is pre-occupied with learning about the Nazis and through luck discovers one...more
For me this book really aptly demonstrates the principle that you can't lie a little, can't dip your toe into depravity, and it does it with King's considerable skill. It starts out simple enough. An early 1970's pre-teen is pre-occupied with learning about the Nazis and through luck discovers one...more
May 22, 2013
Sheri
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
owned,
hiding-under-the-covers
Revisited this story in audiobook form after many, many years. It was rather a different experience, more frightening, than the first time I read it in my late teens. Maybe the teenager me was more comfortable with the idea of the boy's monstrous transformation. Or it may simply be that it feels more real, more possible, to me now than it did 30 years ago. There are so many monstors hiding behind wholesome, smiling masks. Frank Mueller narrates it perfectly, as always.
"Apt Pupil" is the story of a young boy, and a former Nazi in hiding. The boy has a twisted fascination with concentration camps, and upon recognizing the aged Nazi from his library research, forces him to tell him all about the horrific acts committed during World War II.
I couldn't turn this one off. It must have been 7 or even 8am before I finally paused it and went to bed - the premise had me hooked, strongly and immediately. The way it unfolds feels a little too pat - both man and boy separa...more
I couldn't turn this one off. It must have been 7 or even 8am before I finally paused it and went to bed - the premise had me hooked, strongly and immediately. The way it unfolds feels a little too pat - both man and boy separa...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Reading NOS4A2 by Joe Hill put me in a Stephen King mood, so I cruised Audible looking for King books that I hadn't read yet.
Apt Pupil is the story of a seemingly All-American teenage boy associating with a Nazi war criminal, who is living under a false identity. Their individual evilness is used both against the other, and in alliance with the other. Creepy.
Apt Pupil is the story of a seemingly All-American teenage boy associating with a Nazi war criminal, who is living under a false identity. Their individual evilness is used both against the other, and in alliance with the other. Creepy.
Best story in Different Seasons. Yes, it's better than Shawshank and The Body. Both are overrated stories, but I guess it's because of the movies, which are much better. Anyway, if you want suspense, tension, thrills, chills, gross-outs, Apt Pupil is where it's at. It's the longest story in Different Seasons, but I didn't want it to end.
I have not been sure what to write for this review. I have spent a great time thinking about it while listening to this book and still have no idea what to say. So here are the basics; I liked this book. It was pretty fast and the character development was great for a novella. It was tough to listen to at points. Some of the detail about the Holocaust subject matter was tough to get through. I know what we are taught in school and it is painful to think that this occurred. The main characters th...more
For me, this was another nail biter of a book. What I love about King is he can take something that we might have a weird fear of and completely exacerbate it (see Danse Macabre). There are people that have a strange fascination with the history of what happened in the Nazi camps; perhaps with the idea of being familiar with History in an effort to not repeat it. Even though the actions in the camps were appalling, it is a horrible twist on the “gawker slowdown;” I really don't want to see the c...more
Another King-esque style book. And, it was great. The story is about a 13 year old boy who finds a nazi was criminal living in his own town. The boy black mails the man into telling him everything about his days running concentration camps. It turns into a relationship where hey are both trapped with secrets about one another and haunts them for the next 4 years. The story takes a few dark turns and ends in a style that King is best known for. Should you read it? yes, if you like Stephen King's...more
This is about a kid, who finds a dirty secrete about a old man in his town. The man's secrete is he was a Nazi during WWII. If the boy turns him in he wound die. So the boy and old man make a deal. The old man will tell him about the war. The boy becomes obbsesed, and sick. Things just go down hill from there. . .
I didn't realize that I had actually read something by Stephen King. I am quite familiar with a number of his stories from discussion; others from film adaptations. I know him chiefly as an amazing font of poorly-executed ideas and The Man Who Cannot End A Story.
Apt Pupil does not suffer as greatly as his others, though much of the psychology is quite silly and overwrought. As someone who finds WWII and the Holocaust to be blown out of proportion (especially in comparison to other, ignored geno...more
Apt Pupil does not suffer as greatly as his others, though much of the psychology is quite silly and overwrought. As someone who finds WWII and the Holocaust to be blown out of proportion (especially in comparison to other, ignored geno...more
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more
More about Stephen King...
Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more
Feb 11, 2013 02:51am