Christine

 

Author: Stephen King

Genre: Horror

Original publication date: April 29, 1983

Book description:

It’s love at first sight for high school student Arnie Cunningham when he and his best friend Dennis Guilder spot the dilapidated 1958 red-and-white Plymouth Fury for sale—dubbed “Christine” by its original cantankerous owner—rusting away on a front lawn of their suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood. Dennis knows that Arnie’s never had much luck in the looks or popularity department, or really taken an interest in owning a car . . . but Christine quickly changes all that. Arnie suddenly has the newfound confidence to stick up for himself, going as far as dating the most beautiful girl at Libertyville High—transfer student Leigh Cabot—even as a mysteriously restored Christine systematically and terrifyingly consumes every aspect of Arnie’s life. Dennis and Leigh soon realize that they must uncover the awful truth behind a car with a horrifying and murderous history. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and heaven help anyone who gets in Christine’s way

Thoughts:

This is the first time I read a horror story where the evil entity is a car. So I went into it with very high hopes. 

We follow Arnie a very shy kid who just so happens to be the classic floor mat of every bully within sight of him. He has a very good friend, his best friend who is his only support. But then he falls for a piece of junk car. It is overpriced, probably not in working order but still, he loves it. 

buys it and his obsession begins. Since the start people around him have strong negative feelings about the car, be it his friend, parents, and eventually the girl he is dating. Arnie does not care, he invests his time and effort into repairing the piece of junk. You know something is wrong when the car starts to improve and the connection it has to the human owner is eerie. The spooky vibes from the car, the way people perceive Arnie after fixing it up, that was very interesting.  

There is like many of King's books, not a real explanation of why it happened. But we do see a few theories develop and it helps, what you get and know helps you build your own conclusion. 

Arnie is a flawed character. Everyone here is flawed, but it seems realistic. Arnie's parents are used to be in charge of his life, especially the mother. They are not the most understanding parents and their flaws are explained a bit. But there is no real character development. The girlfriend is never really explored, she is just a means to an end, a reason for Arnie to have more conflict with Christine (the car) and with his family and friend. 

There are a lot of people dying but don't worry you are not expected to love any of them so it's not as emotionally draining as it can be in other situations. It was a weird combination for me. I grew angry at the interactions of people to people in this book but the deaths were not as sad but more impactful and they made sense for the overall plot. I was not able to predict when or who was going to die for the most part but you knew it was going to happen at least to a few and once they died it made perfect sense. I was more emotionally affected by the fights Arnie had with those around him, seeing others try to walk all over him. At seeing his parents be so closed-minded and overbearing about his life. They did not even try to understand him. I do get why they hated the car, but they did not handle the situation well. It was a very good book to see the relationship between people and the creepy stuff came later. 

Worth noting: We have examples of bullying, cheating, a type of abusive relationship, mention the death of a small child, be aware of that could be triggering, manipulation and abuse (violence from a minor to a small kid) against a small child. I can't really remember if we have any other trigger warning moments.

The beginning was good, but then we hit a bit of a stall. Nothing was really happening and then towards the end everything explodes and escalates and happens too quick. There is a bit of an open ending if you look too closely, but you can simply overlook it if you wish. 

Huge spoiler: He does not get the girl! People end up being traumatized and years later can't really get over the events that took place with Christine. So they do not really have a happy ever after.

It has a very good ending, not what I was expecting but acceptable.

I gave this:

Recommend it to Stephen King fans but who really want just the spooky vibes but this is not scary really.