Book Review: Roadwork by Stephen King
I feel like i basically haven't had a real break since 2016 started, It is the last semester of my studies, we've already had one exam and there's one more coming up soon, and we have this huge essay which basically sums up all the three years I've been studying. So, I haven't read as much as I wanted.
I read The 5th Wave in January, and then I started on this:
They're tearing down Bart Dawes's home, leveling his memories, and destroying his past, all for a new highway extension. Funny what that kind of progress can do to a man. Scary, too.
I read The 5th Wave in January, and then I started on this:
Stephen King. My hero. I always look forward to reading a book of his, and I make sure that every third book or so that I read is from him. So naturally, I was looking forward to this. A lot. Roadwork was written in 1999, and was published under his pseudonym "Richard Bachman". So far I've really liked the Bachman-books. I even gave a full score to the last one (The Long Walk). So yeah, I was looking forward to this one.
But I can't finish it.
So I thought I should tell you why. This won't be a "real" review of the book, but kind of an explanation.
First of all, I'm not saying that this is a bad book. I don't think it is. When you read about it, it sounds really exciting and I've read a little bit about it. And one day, I will finish it. I'm 100% sure of that. But right now, I just can't.
The thing is, from the first page and up until now (I'm about halfway), I just felt incredibly sad. Sad and tired and done. I don't know if I relate to the main character a little too much, or if I maybe feel the whole theme of the book a little too much or what it is, but everything Bart Dawes does, says and thinks makes me depressive. And I just can't read something like that right now while studying so much at the same time.
I read a comment King made about the book though:
"I think it was an effort to make some sense of my mother's painful death the year before - a lingering cancer had taken her off inch by painful inch. Following this death I was left both grieving and shaken by the apparent senselessness of it all... Roadwork tries so hard to be good and find some answers to the conundrum of human pain."And this makes a lot of sense. Because reading the book feels like entering a mind that is run by sadness and grief and all of the relatable emotions. It makes sense.
That being said, this whole thing just proves how much King is able to get to me. I can't really tell if this is a good book or not, since I haven't finished it, but it may be. I just need to read it at a time where I have the energy for it. So I'm going to take a break and find something else to read that doesn't make me wanna cry and give up life for every page.
