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Firestarter

books

6th July 2013

"Firestarter"
By: Stephen King

I had put off reading Firestarter for years, because I’d already seen the movie and as a result knew the basic story line. It is a really good book and I am pleased that I finally got around to reading it! As it is one of Stephen King’s better earlier books and as usual for his books it is very readable and enjoyable.

The only real problem I had with the story line was the ending. For two reasons – the whole book is about how the American government will do anything to get hold of the little girl, Charlie, and her father Andy, to the point that they are perfectly happy to kill them, seriously blackmail anyone who helps them by threatening to ruin their immediate and extended families, and so on. Combined with the share number of people Charlie was directly responsible for killing, the government is not under any circumstances imaginable just going to let her go and live a normal happy life simply because she made it the offices of Rolling Stone at the very end of the book in order to them her story! The second reasons is in this day and age, this ending is even more unbelievable as the government would not care that everyone knows her real story and would happily spin things to make Charlie look like a dangerous psychopath, despite her age, who needs to be locked up forever to ensure the safety of the general public. Given how many people she did killed during the course of book, a lot of people would agree with them, regardless of the reasons Charlie and her father had.

As much as I hate to say this, but I do think that Firestarter is really one of those stories that can’t end happily for any of the main characters. It ends when it does because that is as close to a happy ending as possible and ignores what would most likely have happened to Charlie in the months or years after she had talked to someone at the Rolling Stone.