The Long Walk

No crazy lady with an axe. No murderous cars or supernatural evil. No fires started. In Stephen King's "The Long Walk," one-hundred teenagers walk at gunpoint until only one remains and wins The Prize. It's a little like the movie "Speed," but on foot and at 4mph. This goes on for days and hundreds of miles non-stop. You meet most of the 100 contestants and watch them slowly go insane and die in creative ways (One continues to walk through days of diarrhea, one tears out his own throat, one attacks the armed guards, etc). The sport of the future is sponsored by a military government we never hear about, and don't care to.
Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, the first season of Walking Dead) snapped up the movie rights to "The Long Walk," but this can't possibly make a good movie. The guys make friends and talk, but the madness and the brilliance is in King's words.
This is my favorite Stephen King book, and it's criminally unfamous. Most prefer King's giant monsters. Remember Stephen King wrote Shawshank and Stand By Me too.

Not sure how this got 4 stars from people. I really enjoy Stephen King’s books, but this one was dreadful. If you want to read 400 pages of nothing but people walking and talking then...after waiting for an inspiring end...get nothing...then this book is for you. Seriously...it needs something else. Normally his books have complex characters and plots...this one falls short on all aspects.

I am a fan of SK and have read many of his books. I understand some of his works are short on plots and long on words, which I don't quite mind. In fact, his ability to describe the human emotions in works like Apt Pupil and Gerald's Game drew me in.

The Long Walk, however, is just there. I know the book has its fans but I am definitely not one of them. There was no plot, no setup, no explanations and no payoffs.

To the reviewer who mentioned that every single death was described in the book, we don't even have that. I took notes on each character so I could become invested in them but they were short of backgrounds, many had no reasons given to why they were there, and we were not even given the creativity of how each of the contestants expended.

At the end of the day, there's no protagonist or antagonist that one could root for. There is no creativity in each person's circumstance or demise that one could take delight in (knowing this is fiction, of course) or become invested in. There's absolutely no payoff even if you follow the main character's journey to the end.

You've been told.

The Long Walk is reminiscent of the Hunger Games but this was BEFORE the Hunger Games. It brought to mind the bedtime song I used to whisperly sing to my kids...10 in a bed and the Little One said, “Roll over, roll over.” They all rolled over and one fell out and the Little One said...But this not about going to sleep and getting the bed to yourself. It’s about the last boy walking. Which boy will that be? That’s damn scary. That’s the story.

There are so many unanswered questions. Why and how the walk came to be? What makes these teenagers participate? Why were there crowds along the road cheering the boys on and...with each gun shot? Relationships develop along the way and then they are gone. I was thrust and pushed into this story and into the mind of Ray Garraty. Once I was in, I couldn’t escape. I was caught between a rock and a hard place as my Grandmother would have said. Sooo, I kept reading and holding the book in my tightly fisted hands. I was scared because I was walking amongst them. This wasn’t just a walk. It was life. And if you stop, you die. Would I be the last one walking? Do I even want to be the last one walking? And perhaps that was the scariest question of all...

I can’t say that I “loved the book” but it did hold me captive to where I could not put it down. It still haunts my thoughts.

“All we are is mice in a trap.”
~Baker

Unlike other reviewers, I disliked this book because I have 2 sons. As a father reading about the various deaths of all the young participants became ugly, early. I have read most of King's works and have enjoyed most of them. I do regard him as the best fiction writer in the USA today, but i found it hard to believe there were 100 sets of parents in New England who would be willing to let their sons be exposed to almost a certain cruel death in this "Long Walk" As a fellow writer, I think that more creativity and sensitivity could have been used to eliminate those contestants who fell along the way. You can do better, Stephen!

“The soldiers on the back of the slow-moving halftrack raised their guns. The crowd gasped, as if they hadn’t known this was the way it was, and the Walkers gasped, as if they hadn’t know, and Garraty gasped with them, but of course he had known, of course they had all known, it was very simple...”

So this is my second read of this book and I must say, I loved it just as much the second time as I did the first time.

The Long Walk is simple in the way stories go. One hundred young men are picked to just walk, last one standing wins whatever their heart desires.

It’s such a basic idea for a story, but King executes it so well that I couldn’t put the book down, I was drawn in chapter to chapter.

The ending was one of the better endings in a book I have read because it really kept me thinking about it long after the walk had ended.

One of Stephen King's books that doesn't rely on magic or evil spirits, THE LONG WALK is a tale of young people caught up in a dystopian future where the government allows, and the populace in general accepts, a cruel and heartless game, whose only winner is the lone survivor. Some people have compared it to HUNGER GAMES, but I think they miss the point that THE LONG WALK was written LONG BEFORE that other story was a glimmer in the mind of its author. Instead, HUNGER GAMES copied the essence of this brilliant story. It is powerful prose, that has you rooting for every character you meet, and makes you wonder how a society could stoop so low as to condone the game.

Unexpected premise.

I found this story interesting. It’s about boys who tear through their bodies and minds in the span of just a few days for the chance to win a contest by walking. And what do you win if you’re the last boy standing? Whatever you want for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, at that point, there’s not a lot of the boy left to enjoy his prize. Sad.

The Hunger Games before The Hunger Games. I adore Stephen King. This book is no exception. He writes characters that are so realistic and builds worlds that seem so relatable. This is a heartbreaking amazing, apocalyptic type coming of age story. It’s a page turner and a fast read.