Christine

Most of the Steven King books I've read have skewed towards the 'epic'- the Dark Tower and Talisman series have spanned multiple books; The Stand and It dealt with the possibility of the world being destroyed in different ways, and 11/22/63 and Under The Dome were just lengthy monsters to get through. Even The Long Walk, while relatively short, certainly had a lot of emotional weight to it. So here's probably the lightest of Steven Kings books I've read so far, and the one with the cheesiest premise: Christine. You could say the book is about a bit of a high-school love 'square' of sorts- popular jock Dennis loves the beautiful new girl in town, Leigh; Leigh against all odds loves dweeby Arnie, who is also Dennis' best friend; and while Arnie dates Leigh, he really only has eyes for Christine. The problem of course, is that Christine is Arnie's car. Yeah, just like Leigh somehow fell hard for the ugly Arnie, Arnie fell in love with an ugly old Plymouth Fury and despite everyone's wishes, he focuses all of his time on fixing up his car. Another problem: The car is possessed by the spirit of its former owner, and can drive itself, and kill anyone it feels stands in the way of it's messed-up "relationship" with Arnie, especially his girlfriend Leigh. Understandably, hijinks ensue. I did still like Christine even if it was a harder pill to swallow than most of King's plots. It did let him write at length about the relationship between man and automobile, especially old hot-rods, and when King gets going on a subject like that he can really get interesting with it- is it creepy that they often get girls' names? How does the car that breaks up Dennis and Arnie's friendship feel like an interloping girlfriend, even moreso than the actual girl that shows up and dates both guys in the span of a few months? There's a whole lotta metaphorical meaning to the car, so even if the premise is a little cheesy, there's plenty I'll remember about Christine. My only real beef was a weird structure to the narrative I didn't like. For the first quarter of the book, Dennis is our narrator. Then for the next half, we get an omniscient third-person narrator. Finally for the last quarter, Dennis returns again. It sort of makes sense as Dennis is 'out of commission' for a while there, but I would have preferred if King had stuck to one voice. Still though, Christine as a whole was pretty solid. The quest to finish the King booklog continues!