Why I Chose this Book

“l remember reading somewhere – and I can’t remember who said it, or wrote it, for the life of me – that there are ‘times’ in human existence. That when it came to be steam-engine time’, a dozen men invented steam engines. Maybe only one man got the patent, or the credit in the history books, but all at once there they were, all those people working on that one idea.”

-Stephen King, Christine

I first considered reading/listening to books written by Stephen King for a few reasons. One of which being first reading King’s advice on writing. One day I simply wanted to listen to an audiobook. I have been doing so for a few years now. As I was browsing the selection of audiobooks on Overdrive.com provided through my local library, I thought why not a Stephen King book? I looked at the available selections and Christine was one of them. I had listened to a few Stephen King books before and they were pretty good. Two of which, to my slight surprise, had nothing to do with horror at all.

Now I was slightly skeptical of a story about a murderous, demon-possessed car owned by a teenager. I guess I was worried that it might feel too forced and “cheesy”. I decided to give it a try anyway. Overall, I think it turned out pretty well.

Christine

“As if those ideas all come not from individuals but from some great wave of intelligence that always keeps flowing . . . some wave of intelligence that is outside of humanity”

-Stephen King, Christine

The book reads like a good movie in the sense that it is very visual. I thought that the action was slow to start, but I didn’t feel bogged down waiting to get to it. The interactions between the characters and their lives seemed interesting and felt believable. When the action did start, the scenes were very vivid and engaging. There rarely seemed to be superfluous details during each murder, but just enough to clearly envision the scene. This was one of the strongest aspects of the book in my opinion. I did notice, though, how the viewpoint of the story would switch from one of the characters to a seemingly omnipotent one. I haven’t yet decided what to make of this. This was an enjoyable and entrancing story. One worth picking up.

Audio Production

The audiobook was produced by Blackstone Audio and narrated by Holter Graham. I enjoyed listening to the narrator overall. It was especially enjoyable to listen to the narrator give distinct and convincing voices to each of the characters as well as point of views throughout the book.

 “So if there was ‘Christine time’ in Rollie’s life, there might have come a time for him to put Christine away as well.”

-Stephen King, Christine