Shawshank Redemption Book Review
I’m going to be honest… I had no idea this was written by Stephen King…
I was perusing the Thursday $2.99 newsletter from Simon & Schuster the other night and one book stood out to me: Different Seasons by Stephen King. A collection of four short stories from the acclaimed author. Stephen King is an author I’ve wanted to read for a long time, but never have. So this seemed perfect. Four short stories. (Somewhat perfectly, I’ve also wanted to read more short stories recently as well.)
To my surprise, the first short story in this book was Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption!
I had no idea the movie was based on a book, let alone a book by Stephen King. I’m embarrassed to admit it but I didn’t know Stephen King wrote things outside of the horror genre. I’ve since learned he’s written in a ton of genres.
I started reading on Saturday morning, and was done by Saturday evening. This short story is 128 pages and I could not put it down.
The short story collection this is a part of was published in 1982 and definitely had some language from that era. Parts of it are quite jarring in modern context. But I think it adds to the authenticity of the themes. It’s prison in the 50s, 60s and 70s and there’s some rough stuff that happens.