Book: The Body
Author: Stephen King
Rating: 5/5 stars
Pages: 179
Release date: August 27th,1982
Publisher: Viking Press
This is my favorite Stephen King book (the second favorite is IT). It is a coming-of-age novel between four boys who come from bad homes.
Gordie older brother recently died in a car crash which caused his parents to neglect him. Gordie’s parents favored his older brother, so they became broken over his death. Gordie is very smart and wants to be an author when he grows up. He often thinks he isn’t good enough because his parents never really supported him.
Teddy lives with his mom. His father is staying at a psychiatrist ward for PTSD he developed for “storming beach in Normady.” When Teddy was young, his father held him up to the ear and nearly burned his ear off resulting him into wearing hearing aids.
Chris Chambers is what you call the bad kid that will never have no future. Well that is not what he really is, but what everyone thinks of him. He has two older brothers and a drunk father that often hits him. His oldest brother left at a early age and it said that he raped a girl and left Castle Rock, Maine. His other brother Richard, (who is mostly called “Eyeball”) is in a gang that torments the people that live in Castle Rock. There is also a rumor that Chris’s steals money and will most likely not make it anywhere in life.
Lastly, there is Vern Tessio. He out of the four boys have the most normal life. He is often made fun of by the the other boys for his weight and him not usually having the brightest of ideas. Him too, have a older brother, Billy, who is apart of a gang.
The whole story is about when these four boys go on a railroad track to find a dead body, while it being a coming-of-a novel. I think that the theme could be is that not everyone is strong all of the time. I say this because all these four boys have bad homes and they try not to let it get to them, but it does. It shows that they have true friends because they helped each other and stuck with each other through thick and thin.
This book is a awesome story, which everyone should at least read once in their life. The movie is just as good. Sure it got some facts and events wring, but it still a good movie and it is as good as the book.
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