[REVIEW] The Long Walk

title: The Long Walk
author: Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
genre: adult fiction, dystopia
published: April 19, 2016 by Pocket Books (first published July 1979)
format: paperback, 400 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
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In this #1 national bestseller, “master storyteller” (Houston Chronicle) Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can only be one winner—the one that survives. 

In the near future, when America has become a police state, one hundred boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules—keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you’re out—permanently.

and I thought a book about walking will be boring.

This is one of the Stephen King books I've been hoping to read and I'm so glad that I finally did. The premise itself really is something. It's simple yet knowing that it's written by Stephen King assures me that the psychological aspect of the characters will be its best asset.

Walk or die, that's the moral of the story. Simple as that. It's not survival of the physically fittest, that's where I went wrong when I let myself into this. -p109

The Long Walk follows Ray Garraty who was chosen along with 99 others to participate in the annual Long Walk where 100 young adults walk until one of them is left. The catch is that you literally have to walk until there's only one kid walking. If you stop, or walk below a certain speed, you're given a warning. After the third warming, you get what they call the "ticket." However, if you win the Long Walk, you can have anything you want for the rest of your life.

It's entirely a psychological game rather than a physical one and we all know it. There's a good amount of character interaction which I enjoyed. It's a short book but I ended up reading getting into many of the characters and while their death didn't exactly move me, I was still into how their interaction with Ray effects him as the Long Walk goes.

"That's what I'm most afraid of. That sound. Why did we do it, Garraty? We must have been insane." -p339

I like reading about their state of mind as they walk ceaselessly, how dead some of them seem to be as they walk, and how some of them just know they'll win. The mental battle is crazy. And I think that that is the strongest point of this novel -- the mental battle.

Part of this mental battle was also Ray's search for his 'reason' for joining the Long Walk and his motivation in completing it. And I really like that part of the story. And for me, until the end, the question still hangs in the air. Ray got to know people in the Long Walk. He got to know their background, the reason they joined the Long Walk, and with those things said, he tries to get the motivation to stay out there and walk for who know when.

OVERALL, Long Walk is a must read if you like psychological novels. It's not action-packed, given its plot, but it's an extremely unputdownable read because the participants' experiences in the Long Walk are really interesting. Also, I LOVED the ending! (yes, yes, people had mixed feelings about it).

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