Book Review: The Long Walk

Good Morning Everyone!

Aren’t you glad it’s the weekend? Breathe in that glorious Saturday air and do something fun, people!

As for me, I stayed up pretty late last night to finish my current read so I’m still a little tired. This time around its The Long Walk by Stephen King.

longwalk

Many a friend have told me how great this book was, so I finally caved and bought it. So how did I like it? Let’s see!

Blurb:

On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as “The Long Walk.” If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying.

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The Review:

longwalk

2.5star

I gave this novel two and a half stars.

This book didn’t work for me, and I nearly DNF’d it. But I digress for the moment.

This novel is about a sick kind of lottery where 100 boys get chosen for The Long Walk. The concept is simple. Start walking, don’t stop. If you do, you get a warning. You only get three warnings before … well I bet you can put two and two together.

The reader follows along on a specific Long Walk where the main character and other boys begin a slow descent into madness. This is kind of ironic, because I felt the same way at several points during this book.

To keep things positive, what I think worked best was the concept and characters.

The concept was intriguing to me. It had a Hunger Games feel to it minus some elements. We get little snippets of history here and there that hint of a darker gameshow history for this world. Also throughout the book we get tidbits of information from the characters. I did enjoy getting to know the world a bit better, but concept isn’t enough to make a book great.

The characters each had their own backstories and I think they were well thought out. Everyone signs up for The Long Walk for their own reasons, and that was interesting to find out. I believe this book was heavily character-based, which is a big turn off for me with books. Characters and an intriguing concept are still not enough to make a book great.

Where I really struggled with this book was plot and flow.

Plot was a bit abysmal if I’m being honest. We got this great lead in to The Long Walk, and then when it starts happening, well, nothing really happens. They walk … and walk and walk. Sure the boys talk to each other along the way, but that gets old pretty quickly and there are too many characters to get to know to keep track of. The flow got confusing in spots, and even more so when they start to lose it.

Truth be told, there just wasn’t enough going on. They walk from city to city as their numbers diminish and their sanity is compromised.

There were way too many descriptions of nature. Throughout the book, I cringed at how much filler King crammed in here. I really didn’t care about what the road ahead of them looked like, I wanted something interesting to happen. In my opinion this would’ve been better as a novella with a lot of filler cut out.

Ultimately, The Long Walk was a disappointment for me. Only you can decide if this book for you, but I cannot recommend it due to poor flow and lack of plot.

Happy Reading!

That’s a Wrap!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Do you have a book recommendation similar to this one? Feel free to share in the comments!

If you’d like to see other reviews of mine, feel free to check out my blog homepage or my GoodReads. You can also follow my GoodReads reviews here. There are some great binge-worthy books on there!

Have a great day!

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