Rage is about a high schooler who (after he learns he is to be transfered to a reform school after attacking a teacher) takes a classroom hostage, killing the teacher when he enters, but leaving the students alive. The book, told from Charlie's prosepctive, chronicales the hostage situation over a few hours, as he variously tells stories of how he got to where he is now and listens to other students spilling their own secrets. All except for one student, who the other teens eventually turn on and beat savagely.
I wanted to like this book, I really did. It's the first of the books that King wrote as Richard Bachman, and is one of his only novels to not have any supernatural elements. It's an interesting idea for a novel, and starts out well. Seeing the whole situation from Charlie's prospective is interesting in the beginning. His hostages sympathizing with him and telling their own stories is compelling. But the timing doesn't seem right. They seem to turn almost instantly, showing little fear or really any emotion, even after a teacher is shot and killed right in front of them.
Because the story only takes place over a few hours, everyone turning agains the one teen who doesn't take Charlie's side and doesn't make his own confessions doesn't ring true. The mob mentality seems to happen way too quickly, considering the book ends with them beating him so badly that he is later in a catatonic state.
This is a book that wouldn't get published today, and is the only book of King's that he has allowed to go out of print. This isn't that surprising given the subject matter, and, given the quality, isn't actually that much of a loss.
Rage Overview
Connections: None that I know of.
Lameness of Ending: High. Shocking for the purpose of being shocking, without making much sense.
King Digs Dylan: Charlie paraphrases from It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding): "The need to see everyone at the same leve, gargling in the same rat-race choir, to paraphrase Dylan"
Fear Level: 1 out of 10 - Some suspenseful moments, but that's not the point of the book.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 10. Interesting idea, but it goes off the rails quickly. It's an unpleasant read, which just isn't worth it in the end.
Next Book: Night Shift (the first of the short story collections)
