The only story I did not care for was The Body. To me, it felt very out of place despite the connection with the seasons. I loved the other three stories though ( )

3 out of 4 became movies. 1 out of 3 is better as a novella. Some of King's best writing. ( )

its tough to review a collection of stories like this so i gave the overall star rating a 5 since i think this is a great package. lets go over each story.

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption:
very good and the characters are great but i do think its a tad too short and this is where i think the movie excelled better. i still worth reading as its still very good and i do love me a prison escape.

Apt Pupil:
this is the one i always wanted to read about as i think the idea behind it to be fascinating and i think the movie was alright but i always had a feeling that it felt like there was more to it. this one is good but wow this might be the most disturbing King book i read so far its quite shocking. no wonder the movie skipped over some of the content in this book. with that out of the way, this one is worth a read as it has some good character writing and build up but keep in mind that it gets very dark and depressing.

The Body:
this is my favorite story in this collection. the characters are top notch and to see them go on a little adventure is fun and you really understand where they came from. lots of fun debates and dialog and even though this story is rooted in the early 60's i feel its still easy to relate to as even when i grew up i always like going on a journey that seems like a life time long and the types of conversations we had as kids is still very true. this one comes highly recommended.

The Breathing Method:
ah yes the Breathing Method everyone's favorite haha. ok to be serious this story is not that bad, i think its ok. its weird but unique. now i have not read the Dark tower series yet (i plan on it) but i have heard that you might get more enjoyment if you read that series for a connection but as its own. its ok i was not crazy about it but i think it presented some neat ideas but could have been much more expended on. still worth a read but i think the other 3 are more consistently enjoyable for me ( )

This book contains four novellas by Stephen King. While this author is known for his horror stories, I wouldn't say any of them are in that genre - at best, "The Breathing Room" does have some horror elements. Instead, these tales seem to focus more on their characters.

"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" was my favorite - Andy's character is very interesting, & Red works well as a narrator. "The Body" & "The Breathing Method" were also solid - I found the plot of the latter to be a bit more compelling, whereas the characters in the former seemed stronger to me. This worked well in terms of bringing diversity to the collection.

I couldn't finish "Apt Pupil." Todd is a terrible person from the beginning, even before his interactions with Dussander, & I just did not enjoy reading about him. If the plot had been compelling, that might have saved the story, but it drags quite a bit, at least at the beginning. However, I would still recommend this book based on the other three stories ( )

lol "short stories" is probably not the right shelf, because they're not exactly short. They're what's called novellas in English, I believe. I don't know if we have a Swedish word for that, probably something that I learned in school and forgot.

The name "Different seasons" is just "Seasons" in Swedish, and they fucking went with it, translating all the titles to one season each. It does not work at all. The Body is named after autumn, despite taking place during summer vacation and the first two stories span several years. It's only the last one, about winter, that kinda hits the mark, but nah, I don't like it. I liked the book though.

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption Very good story. I've never seen the movie so I didn't actually know what to expect and I can't tell you if it's true to the novella or not, but all the same I truly did enjoy it. The ending was good, which is rare for something written by King (I say, loving most things he writes).

Apt Pupil This one is so fucking creepy, which, OKAY, it's a King novella, of course it's gonna be creepy, but it's not creepy because of anything supernatural, it's creepy because Todd is the worst character I've ever had to read about. Honestly the first 30 pages could've been a short story on their own, a really creepy one. The creepy vibe is kinda lost the longer it goes on, but I still enjoyed it and it was still truly a feel bad story.

The Body You know, I've seen Stand By Me a few times but I don't think I ever really "got" it before reading the novella. I'm not sure I get it now either, but I like it better than before. Everything except that scene with those gross creatures whose English name I can't remember or bother to look up (I don't wanna risk seeing pictures!!), but you all know what I'm talking about so it doesn't matter.

The Breathing Method This was not very good and honstely almost made four star it instead of five, but since it's such a short story I'll let it be. It's just so many men in it and it seems a bit misogynistic to write about pregnancy this way, so I just didn't like it. Then again it might not be about the pregnancy at all, it might be about a club, and then maybe it could have/should have been explored more. Maybe. ( )