The Colorado Kid

Stephen King

The Colorado kid

I rather liked the short novel ‘Colorado Kid’. The setting is atmospheric, the internal narrative is well designed and the three characters Stephanie, Vince and Dave are likeable. However, due to the brevity of the story, I found the introduction, or rather the first half, a bit slow. King is known for a large part of his books consisting of ‘side information’ (which doesn't bother in longer novels), but in my opinion it didn't do this story any good. The actual plot was far too short and the mystery part should have been much more in the foreground.

Still, it was a nice short read, and I was pleased to see a few of the “puzzle pieces” of the King universe appear again - which makes the story much bigger than it might seem.

Emily

I rather liked the short novel ‘Colorado Kid’. The setting is atmospheric, the internal narrative is well designed and the three characters Stephanie, Vince and Dave are likeable. However, due to the brevity of the story, I found the introduction, or rather the first half, a bit slow. King is known for a large part of his books consisting of ‘side information’ (which doesn't bother in longer novels), but in my opinion it didn't do this story any good. The actual plot was far too short and the mystery part should have been much more in the foreground.

Still, it was a nice short read, and I was pleased to see a few of the “puzzle pieces” of the King universe appear again - which makes the story much bigger than it might seem.



👍 The 3 main characters • Keeps you making theories to solve the mystery • The afterword

Bernardo Núñez

👍 The 3 main characters • Keeps you making theories to solve the mystery • The afterword

👎 It ends in the climax

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues. But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...? No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a surprising tale that explores the nature of mystery itself...

Demon

What can I say first?
I picked up this book during a 15 hours trip and I finally read only 3 pages. Not because I didn’t like it, but because I knew I had to be wide awake to fully understand the story. I gave it another try more than 1 month after and here I am, happy I read it.

I didn’t expect the story to be what it is, the summary isn’t really giving us a real information on the book but it was still a really interesting adventure. 
<spoiler>The story, narrated by two old newspaper men to a new newspaper lady, invited us to dig into the world of a small local newspaper and a non-solved murder (or was it?) case. 
At the end, we know nothing. Or better, we know a lot of things which don’t help us to know what really happened. And in a way, that’s okay. It’s not really the end of the story that matters, but the conclusion. We can view the story as a fable.</spoiler>

You dive in the story as Steffi, one of the main character, does. You will feel her emotions and the emotions of the two newspaper men who tell the story and you start feeling close to those characters, almost as if they’re long time acquaintances or friends.

“Depending on whether you liked or hated The Colorado Kid (I think for many people there’ll be no middle ground on this one […])”
- Stephen King, The Colorado Kid
I would 100% recommend that book, it’s a short but intense read you can do in one sitting but you would need some time to recover from all the informations! It will, for sure, stay on your mind.

Daniel Spruill

King noted in the afterword that you’ll either love or hate this book, but it was very middle of the road for me.

Going into it knowing not to expect resolution aided in my enjoyment. It’s a pretty harmless story with some memorable imagery. A nice in-between book.

Guy Schmidt

Lara Engle

The Colorado Kid reads like an extended short story. It's a delightful little murder (?) mystery on a frame of journalistic geezers at a small-town paper mentoring and perhaps testing the young whippersnapper intern they may wish to keep around. There's no Stephen King gore, just a nice, nostalgic tale of all those stories that can infect us with curiosity, even though we suspect we may never get any answers.

Colleen

I first became aware of this book when I noticed that the show Haven was based on it. I like the show, so I decided to check out the book. It definitely was not what I expected.

I will honestly admit that what I enjoyed most was listening to this audio book. I rarely get to hear a decent Maine accent in my Midwestern purgatory. And most of the times when someone "from away" attempts one they end up sounding like a dumb pirate who has been hit with a boom too many times. So it was lovely to just sit back and listen to a little piece of Down East. But I will point out a few things about this book.

1) It is absolutely nothing like the tv show Haven. At first I thought it was going to be a prequel, but that was not the case. Other than the characters Vince and Dave from the newspaper and the basic facts of the Colorado Kid mystery, there was nothing in common whatsoever.

2) It is not Stephen King's usual style. This is a very short Crime/Noir style story rather than creepy horror. I don't blame the guy for trying to mix things up a little. But don't open this book expecting it to be The Shining. 

3) It will leave you with more questions than answers. This isn't the type of story where everything is wrapped with a neat, little bow. Which may be more realistic but far less entertaining.

If you're board and what something quick and different to read, then give this a try. If not, you won't really be missing much.

This review fulfills the "A Book with Bad Reviews" category of the Popsugar reading challenge. http://www.popsugar.com/love/Reading-...

Kristen Claiborn

I don’t know how I managed to go so long without reading this book. I’ve been a Stephen King book almost as long as I’ve been able to read books. I read my first one in 4th grade, fell in love with both Stephen King and books in general, and have devoured every one of his books since then. Somehow, I missed this one. In an effort to make up for lost time, I dug right in. 
	At just under 200 pages, this one is significantly shorter than the Stephen King books I’m used to. I was able to finish this one in well under twenty-four hours. I was fully invested in finding out the story of this mysterious corpse. How did this man’s body end up on that beach? As the story unfolded, I was more and more intrigued, reading with every ounce of curiosity my brain contained. What was he doing there? What did he have for dinner? Where did the cigarettes come from??? HOW did he get there? I needed answers, so I kept reading, wanting nothing more than to get the answers. 
	I didn’t. There were no answers. None. 
	Stephen King did me dirty with this book. I’m used to his books leaving me with some lingering questions, but I am not used to his books leaving with ALL the questions going unanswered. King set the story, created the mystery and intrigue, then it just ended. I have never been more angry with a Stephen King novel. I’m still mad. 
	So, there you have it friends, the first Stephen King book I really didn’t love. Sigh. The king has disappointed me.

Alexis Rader

2.5, I didn’t love this one, it was kind of boring. There wasn’t anything that kept me reading besides the narrator voicing the characters well. I was hoping that something crazy happened with the man they found but it was lackluster.

Colorado Kid

Emir Andrés Ibañez

Este libro llegó a mi por casualidad, y viendo que era chiquito y finito decidí empezarlo, como quien tiene algo de lectura ligera y una siesta aburrida. Cuando menos me di cuenta lo terminé y... no sabría decir cómo me siento al respecto, así que voy a hacer lo posible.
El libro es una conversación larga que mantienen Vince y Dave, dos periodistas de avanzada edad, con Steff, una periodista que llega a Maine y empiezan a tener charlas sobre "misterios sin resolver", hasta que sale a colación el caso de Colorado Kid. Desde allí todo se convierte en un relato, alternados entre Vince, Dave, y pausas para café.
El misterio básicamente es: dos adolescentes encontraron a un hombre muerto muerto en la playa, sentado en la arena, apoyado contra una papelera.
Los periodistas van contando la historia de la manera en los que ellos se fueron enterando de los sucesos previos y posteriores al descubrimiento del cadáver. A cada paso, uno se va metiendo más y más en el misterio, vas queriendo juntar los datos y vas especulando cuál puede llegar a ser el GRAN desenlace.
Error.
Tal cosa no existe.
No sé cómo empezar a hablar del final sin hacer spoilers, pero puedo decir que no fue lo que esperaba. Imaginé una resolución más intensa. Un final, o un desenlace del caso que justifique por qué Colorado Kid entraría en la categoría "misterios sin resolver".
Es una oda al misterio, la duda, la incertidumbre, como factor principal en el periodismo y todo lo que eso genera en las personas y en los medios.
Fue entretenida y llevadera, la prosa de King no es para nada desperdiciable, pero ese final me dejó un gusto amargo.

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Tenisha Scott

I was disappointed by this one. I thought it was the basis for the show 'Haven' which i've loved for years and have never got around to finishing but was sorely disappointed when the story really didn't go anywhere. I was bracing myself for an extravagant ending in Stephen King's typical fashion but, alas, there was none.

Andrea

Sophie Rodgers

caroline

 Kylee Smith

A novice newspaperwoman gains insight into the nature of mystery itself when her mentors tell her about a 25-year-old unsolved investigation involving a dead man found on a Maine beach.