By Stephen King
****
“Well then, I'm going to tell you a secret almost every newspaper man and woman who's been at it awhile knows: in real life, the number of actual stories - those with beginnings, middles, and ends - are slim and none. But if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside) and then kick in what Dave Bowie there calls a musta-been, your reader will tell himself a story.”
― Stephen King, The Colorado Kid
I read this book after watching the SYFY show, Haven, which is loosely based off The Colorado Kid. I needed - NEEDED - to know how the two compared and how closely the TV show followed the original book. The answer is "barely." There are few similarities between the two, namely the setting in a small town in coastal Maine; the two newspapermen, Vince and Dave; and a mystery around a body discovered in the 80s of a John Doe nicknamed the Colorado Kid. Everything else, including the heart of the mystery of the Kid, differ.
This was my first Stephen King - I'm a big weeny, so the scary stuff just ain't gonna happen - and I really enjoyed it. There's a mystery, but you're not living in it; the reader, like Stephanie, is listening to a tale from over 20 years ago told by the only two people who are still interested in the story. In other words, it was a low-stress read. Also a quick one; it only took me a couple of hours to finish.
There are some things about this story that will frustrate readers, and normally I would count myself among the frustrated, but I appreciated how the story evolved. It was a couple of hours reading well spent.
This was my first Stephen King - I'm a big weeny, so the scary stuff just ain't gonna happen - and I really enjoyed it. There's a mystery, but you're not living in it; the reader, like Stephanie, is listening to a tale from over 20 years ago told by the only two people who are still interested in the story. In other words, it was a low-stress read. Also a quick one; it only took me a couple of hours to finish.
There are some things about this story that will frustrate readers, and normally I would count myself among the frustrated, but I appreciated how the story evolved. It was a couple of hours reading well spent.
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