Christine

 

Christine
Christine
by Authors: Stephen King
Released: 07 September, 2004
ISBN: 0451160444
Mass Market Paperback

Sales Rank: 76827

List price: $7.99
Our price: $3.20 (You save: $4.79)
Book > Christine > Customer Reviews:
  Average Customer Rating:

Christine > Customer Review #1:
A story about love, devotion, and jealousy...........

Hands down my favorite S. King book, Christine will leave you spooked to say the least. As many others have pointed out, it is much more than car-goes-psycho-and-murders-teens. It is actually a twisted love triangle of sorts between two best friends and a possessive, increasingly jealous, attention craving girl....named Christine, a 58 Plymouth Fury, one of the original muscle cars from back in the day. The two friends, Arnie Cunningham and Dennis Guilder, are polar opposites, having grown up together and maintained their strong ties. Arnie is the typical high school geek, always getting picked on and harrased by school bullies. He cant even find solace at home as his mother is a dominating, overprotective lord-of-the-house type who runs everyones life in her family. His only friend in the whole world is Dennis. Dennis is a popular, good looking football player who acts as a big brother and protector to Arnie. Their friendship is really the key to the whole story, and it is built up well. Things begin to go south when Arnie sees Christine junked up and for sale on the side of the road, and he is instantly smitten with her (if you think it is odd to call it a her, youll change your tune after reading this book). Arnie pours an increasing amount of time and effort into fixing her up, which begins to strain Arnies relationships between him and Dennis. The disturbing thing (and I mean disturbing) is that the rolling wreck which barely ran in the first place begins to fix itself, slowly healing as Arnie shows her more love and attention...and as Arnie begins to put more time and effort into Christine, fixing her up and attending to her mechanical needs, she begins to look out for him (!) as well. It is interesting that Arnie grows to have more in common with Christine than Dennis, in that as he grows and matures, his long friendship with him begins to fade (remember your childhood friends? remember when you started hanging out with other people in high school? sad isnt it when relationships change as you grow?) Both Arnie and Christine in a sense are castaways, awkward, and unloved, forgotten in a crowd. As the story goes, Arnie becomes obsessed with Christine and her well being to the point of unhealthiness, and he begins to shift from a high school loser to a rebel with a malevolent attitude to boot. Its at this point that things start getting scary, as Christine, who has asserted herself as the centerpiece in his life, begins to take on a life of her own. A tangible love story fleshes itself out between the two outcasts (it sounds stupid here, but is horrifyingly real as King paints the picture)...and God help anyone who threatens Arnie or tries to get between her and her Man. School bullies begin to die in mysterious hit and run accidents unmatched in their brutality and viciousness, and a showdown sets itself up when Dennis and his girlfriend decide to save Arnie from his downward spiral by destroying Christine in a gripping, white knuckle showdown you will never forget. You will NEVER look at an old car again without seeing in your minds eye a candy apple red, snarling 58 Plymouth Fury, all fins and chrome, with a black skull and crossbones license plate saying Rock and Roll will Never Die!


Christine > Customer Review #2:
This book was exellent.

If you like old classic cars, or the new fancy fast cars mixed in with some horror, Christine by Steven King is for you. This book is a mind reveting and an awesome ride. If you read it you might want to buckle your seat belt. This book is also part mystery, because when the car is moving Arnie appears to be behind the wheel. But is he really all by himself?

Arnie Cunnigham and his new/old car named Christine are the main characters of the book, along with Arnies best friend Dennis. Dennis was with Arnie the day that he bought Christine form Roland D. Leby. From that day, Dennis knew that buying that car was the worst thing Arnie had ever done.

Arnie changed in many ways after he bought the car. He started getting in fights whit hes parent; he even got in a fight at school, getting the kid expelled. He had a really bad complexion before he bought the car. Dennis noticed that Arnies axne was starting to go away, so he complemented him on it by saying a joke. Arnie didnt like the joke very much at all. Arnie even got his first girl friend. All the guys at school couldnt believe she would go out with a dork like him. Her name was Leigh Cabot.

The book takes place mostly at Wills Garage. That is where Arnie spent most of his time fixing up Christine. Leigh gets really mad because he spends almost all of his time with the stupid car and almost no time at all with her.

People who got on Arnies bad sied start dying. All the police know is that all the murders involve a red car, and that the victims did something really bad to Arnie. Arnie is usually out of town when the murderstake place, and his car is red. But there are about twenty other cars in town that are red too.

If you want to dind out what happens to Arnie and Christine his 1958 Plymouth Fury, read this book.

I really liked the book; ists probably the best book Ive ever read. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Its only my opinion, but I think that Steven King is a pretty gook author.


Christine > Customer Review #3:
Long But Engrossing

Nothing gets in the way of a boy and his car---NOTHING, not even his girlfriend. Not even his best friend from childhood. NOTHING. Especially if its Arnie Cunningham and his Christine, a 1958 red-and-white Plymouth Fury who earns her name and then some over the course of this book. This is Stephen Kings 1983 classic Horror novel CHRISTINE.

Having seen the feature film, made later the same year and starring Keith Gordon as the nerdy, much-picked-upon Arnie Cunningham, I can say that this book certainly places the terrifying screen images I remember into a whole new context---indeed, into a whole new dimension. You see, in the film, the car itself was just plain evil---as illustrated by the song "Bad To The Bone" by George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers being played at both the beginning and the ending. In the book, its a lot less simple than that: Its not just that Arnie becomes obsessed with Christine, who influences him to become evil; the focus is more on Christines evil previous owner, Roland D. LeBay. Over time, Arnie gradually metamorphoses into LeBay, whos described as being "always angry" and refers to his enemies as "sh*tters." (In the movie, Arnie comes up with that word himself.) There are subplots involving the delving into LeBays past, as well as dealing with Arnies parents. In the movie, Roland D. LeBay still sells Arnie the car, but he is no more consequential than that. Interestingly enough, in the book, it is Arnies father who is the sympathetic parent, with the mother being a harridan; in the movie, it is the other way around.

Typically for a Stephen King book versus the movie, the body count is higher in the book. Will Darnell, the fat, coarse body-shop owner (and Arnies boss) meets an especially prolonged end in the written version. [SPOILER ALERT: The only majorly disappointing thing to me about the book was Arnies rather anti-climactic end. In the movie, he is killed while in Christine; in the book, he is killed in a car accident along with his mother on the snowbound Pennsylvania Turnpike.]

I liked the unique narrative structure of CHRISTINE. The book is divided into three sections: The first is narrated in the first person by Arnies best friend Dennis Guilder, the mid-section changes to a Gods-eye third-person point of view, and the final section goes back to Dennis first-person narration. Its a very interesting technique, perhaps odd, but I think it works for this novel. Of course, there are plenty of King witticisms that us fans have come to love about his writing---CHRISTINE is chock-full of them! Its because of this that I forced myself to read slower---and believe me, I had to read a lot slower than usual, because CHRISTINE is a real page-turner! I really didnt want to miss the sarcastic observations, ironic musings and other King witticisms than have become a trademark. I definitely recommend reading CHRISTINE; it is quite enjoyable, no matter if you saw the film version first or not.

RECOMMENDED; AGES 16 and UP
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR STEPHEN KING FANS



 
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