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Dec 02, 2007

Andy rated it:

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4 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Dan rated it:

The Long Walk is simply exhausting to read. I found myself keep drifting in and out of sleep, needing to eat, drink, and use the bathroom. But most of all, my feet ached a little more after each page. This is not because the book was bad and that I was losing attention, it was simply because I was so involved in the story. I was walking WITH them.The premise is simple and I'm sure if you're reading this review you're aware of what its about. The fact that the story is so simple, allows for it to More...

3 comments like (26 people liked it)

Mar 10, 2011

Ace rated it:

The story starts when a hundred boys from different states of America joined a yearly "Long walk" contest. The participants need to walk without decreasing their speeds and without stopping until they reach the finish line. Each time they fail sustaining their walks is equivalent to a ticket, they can only get three tickets, the next one will be a gunshot in their heads.

What made me buy this book is because it is in my favorite genre, Dystopia. Maybe, I expect too much when More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2011

Brandon rated it:

This tale takes place in the future, I'm not entirely sure when King has this marked for but it sure as hell isn't present day. You've got 100 teens and you tell them that you have to walk at a consistent pace of 4 miles per hour until you just cannot do it any longer. While you're allowed 3 warnings (you’re never quite sure the length allowed before a warning is issued but I can only assume it's about 30 seconds) before you're eliminated, you need to walk for an hour straight to clear your wa More...

9 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2007

Shannon rated it:

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2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2012

Karl Ruben rated it:

It didn't strike me quite as hard as the first Bachman book, Rage did, but The Long Walk is still a blinder of a book, containing much of the same kind of pure, distilled adolescent energy its predecessor was brimming with. In a way, it's the mirror image of the previous book I read, but whereas The Plague was more or less detached in the way it portrayed people constantly on the brink of death, TLW never lets you forget that it's a story about young men walking, walking, walking to their doom. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2010

Becky rated it:

I love reading about dystopian societies, but this book left me wanting. I was really unsure of whether I liked it enough to warrant giving it 3 stars or 4 stars, and I'm still not sure, so for the time being, it will be marked as 4, but in my mind its 3.5.

I really felt like the King (or Bachman, if you prefer) who wrote this story was just not the King that I know and love yet. One of the things that I love the most about King is that he creates a world that is tangible and real, a More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 18, 2011

Todd rated it:

I'm going back through and rereading the Bachman Books trying to decide which one was Stephen King's best. This is one of the front-runners about Ray Garraty, "Maine's Own" making The Long Walk across Maine. If you walk too slow, you get a warning and too many warnings and the guards shoot you dead.

I think what keeps this from being a five star read for me--and I'm admittedly nitpicking--is that I wish King would have shown more madness from the Walkers experiencing sleep d More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 08, 2011

Ntina rated it:

My favorite book from Stephen King as Richard Bachman, this one describes the story of 100 boys who take part in an annual walking contest, the Long Walk where the rule is walk or die and there can be only one winner who can have everything he wishes for after that.
What was amazing about this book for me is that I found myself walking with these boys, thinking what they were thinking, feeling their physical and mental pain, despair, hope and sufering! An intense, depressing, brutal book w More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Aaron rated it:

Aaron King
11/10/11
Per. 6
Quarter 1 Book Review: The Long Walk (Stephen King)
One of the most enjoyable and vital pastimes throughout history is that of reading. Reading is an absolute good, with nothing wrong to possibly come out of it. Reading sharpens the mind, enhances vocabulary, and is a pleasurable approach to escape from the stresses of life into a world of fantasy as well as non-fiction. Whichever style of reading is preferred, and whether you read in your spare ti More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 19, 2008

Mike rated it:

This is one of a few books I have that can I pick up and re-read when I have nothing else to read or am just too lazy to run to the bookstore. Does anyone else have books that they've read half a dozen times which are just good 'filler' books (for lack of a better word)?

100 teenage boys voluntarily line up on a Maine road in mid spring. When the clock strikes 9, the long walk begins. 4 MPH is the minimum speed that must be maintained. If the limit is breached, a warning is issued. If More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2007

Jeremiah rated it:

This is my favorite Stephen King book, and I've read quite a few of them. I've read this one probably a half-dozen times, and it really thrills me every time.

This isn't a horror book, like some of Stephen King's other works. This was the second book in the "Bachman Books" that were released some years ago, and along with "The Running Man," foreshadowed the reality TV epidemic we have today.

The story in "The Long Walk" centers around a competiti More...

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Apr 02, 2011

Antoaneta rated it:

Не бях чела книга на Стивън Кинг от ученическите си години. Сигурно и през следващите десет няма да посегна отново към него. Но книгата наистина е удивителна, потресаваща, много силна, въздействаща.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 29, 2008

Andrea rated it:

Not King's typical horror, this book is pretty awesome. It really gets under your skin as these 100 boys begin their "Long Walk." One by one they are picked off (they call it "buying a ticket") until we are desensitized to their horrific deaths. You don't want any of them to "buy a ticket" but there can only be ONE winner. It's a different kind of hell from what we are used to from King, but when you read about the people lined up to see the Walkers and what they go More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 03, 2011

Beth rated it:

Horrifying and at the same time exhilarating. Amazing what the human body can endure, but why? WHY did these boys volunteer for "The Long Walk". The visions this put in my head will stick with me for a long time. The book will be one to read again, perhaps not so close to having taken not so long a walk.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 06, 2009

Tristan rated it:

This is probably my favorite Stephen King book of all time AKA Richard Bachman. The book is about 100 teen boys go on a walk for there lives, if you stop a 4 mph pace you get a warning. If you get three warnings, you get shot in the head. The whole thing is just very gruesome. Why would anyone want to join this competition you ask? Well the last man standing. Gets a very big prize. Anything you could ever ask for. Stories speculate that it isn't true, as some people become crazed. My favorite c More...

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Feb 04, 2009

Josh rated it:

This was book #2 from the Dudes' Book Club, as selected by young Craig Massie.

While I can't say I was "wowed" by this, I can say that it's stuck with me. Excellent pace, mood, and characters. I feel like it was almost a writing excerise for Stephen King (aka Richard Bachman - whose only discernable difference from King is that he's from New Hampshire instead of Maine. And somehow he was still extremely upset when people figured out it was him). It allowed him the oppor More...

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Feb 06, 2012

Dylan rated it:

I'm beginning to think of Stephen King the way I think of fast food, or reality TV, or whatever the best analogy is for something that isn't exactly good, but is easy to digest and tends to be enjoyable if you maintain low expectations. That sort of experience is appealing to me often enough that I suspect by the time I meet my own death (which right now seems likely to be a violent one, at the hands of an evil clown/demon/car/government/lamp monster) I'll have read more of Stephen King's novels More...

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Jan 15, 2012

Gary rated it:

I've always enjoyed reading Stephen King. He should be the one who gets credited with expanding my interest in writing, but at one time he was pretty much all I read. One huge regret was that I stopped by a book store and this book caught my eye. At first I thought it was written by the same guy who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but then I noticed it was written by Richard Bachman, not Richard Bach, but I had the book in my hands so I read the dust cover. It seemed to be a story about m More...

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Dec 16, 2011

Sheri rated it:

For me, The Long Walk by Stephen King was good while I was reading it. Then, after I had finished it, it got better because I started to think about it more. Teen boys, walking until they slow down too much and are shot and killed. I know, crazy right? Only from Stephen King! While I was reading it, I thought that Mr. King could have done a lot more with the book. There were so many stories to tell, so many interesting characters. Plus it sidled off in the typical ways that sadly, most King book More...

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Oct 17, 2011

Lucy rated it:

The Long Walk has always been not just one of my favorite Stephan King books, but one of my favorite books in general. I just finished reading it for the first time in a few years, and it was just as moving and unbelievably insane as it was all of the other times I’ve read it. I remember the first time I read it, and how shocked I was when I realized what “getting your ticket” actually meant. I enjoy reading dystopian novels, so, maybe, I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t.

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 02, 2011

Nicola rated it:

Reason for Reading: I'm in the process of of re/reading all of Stephen King's works in chronological order. This was the next book in line.

I originally read "The Long Walk" when King released his omnibus of "The Bachman Books" in 1985. Of the four novels "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man" were my favourites and I was looking forward to this re-read. Initially, the book struck a chord with me because even back in the eighties I could imagin More...

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Jun 19, 2011

Clickety rated it:

Maybe I'm getting to the point where I can enjoy, as well as appreciate, Stephen King. There's an essay at the beginning where he describes the difference between writing as King and writing as Bachman, which made me even more curious about how the story was going to end. <spoiler>He says that Bachman is kind of ... darker and grimmer (IKR!) than King; that in Bachman books the good guy is less likely to win. So I kind of thought the story would end with the protagonist's death, but that w More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 25, 2011

Kristen rated it:

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0 comments like

Jan 25, 2011

Jess rated it:

This is the first Stephen King book I've ever read and I have to say ...love ...I am truly, deeply in love. My first thought was that these 100 boys are crazy -- they're insane, what EVER gave them the idea to do this walk? The prize doesn't seem worth it, especially since only one person can win. One vs death. It doesn't seem very logical to me.

Then I turned the page, I kept reading and my way of thinking started changing. Suddenly I was there, I was in the book. Reality, I was up a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 08, 2010

Riker rated it:

This book is literally a psychological journey involving one-hundred teenagers from all parts of the US. I was compelled by the setting: a strange future in which exists a lethal contest. All contestants walk along one road until there is only one left surviving. This was perfect for my mindset; I've enjoyed books which revolve around morals I can think about and debate with in my mind. Likewise, the gimmick about the story's contest is that anyone who stops walking gets shot. It's definitely a More...

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Oct 25, 2010

Lola rated it:

In an alternate world, or maybe simply our own society in a not-so-distant future, there exists the ultimate competition. "The Long Walk" is an annual event, drawing in young men from around the country to participate for a chance at winning the Prize - anything they desire. However, as one character says, "The whole banana or nothing at all," and to stop walking means death at the hands of steel-faced soldiers. Ray Garraty, the lead character and "Maine's own," is More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 08, 2010

sonia rated it:

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Mar 21, 2010

Jordy rated it:

I'm not going to sum up the plot--most reviews here do that.

I read this book first when I was 14--and I've read it at least once every two years or so since (I'm 22 now). I consider it one of King's best novels, which probably really means that I prefer Bachman to King.

I consider this to be such a great novel because I think that it follows such universal themes of man's cruelty to man, our intense need for connection, and the power of the drive to survive. I think the pacing More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 18, 2010

Hayden rated it:

The Long Walk by Stephen King tells the story of an alternate, totalitarianistic America in which one hundred teenaged boys line up on a desolate Maine highway. At nine o’clock in the morning, ‘The Long Walk’ begins. In this alternate universe, ‘The Long Walk’ is a sort of sporting event that is carried out by the military. It is fully embraced by the American people, in a way that is reminescent of the Olympics. The idea is that the contestants are to begin walking down the highway without stop More...

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