Blume knows the way kids and teens speak, but her two female leads are less credible as they reach adulthood. Caitlin, determined never to be ordinary, is always testing the limits, and in adolescence falls hard for Von, an older construction worker, while Vix falls for his friend Bru.

The years in between are related in brief segments by numerous characters, but mostly by Vix. The story of how this casual invitation turns the two girls into what they call 'Summer sisters' is prefaced with a prologue in which Vix is asked by Caitlin to be her matron of honor. Caitlin, on the other hand, lives part of the year with her wealthy mother Phoebe, who’s just moved to Albuquerque, and summers with her father Lamb, equally affluent, on the Vineyard. Victoria, or more commonly Vix, lives in a small house her brother has muscular dystrophy her mother is unhappy, and money is scarce. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Martha’s Vineyard, her life changes forever. The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume’s latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. Yes, the King byline will ensure a sizeable turnout, but the word will soon get around that the author of Carrie has this time churned out a ho-hum dud. Johnnie is a faceless hero, and never has King's banal, pulpy writing been so noticeable in its once-through-the-typewriter blather and carelessness. it was as American as The Wonderful Worm of Disney'). He's Mayor Gregory Aromas Stillson of Ridgeway, N.H., and only Johnnie knows that this apparently klutzy candidate is really the devil incarnate-that if Stillson is elected he'll become the new Hitler and plunge the world into atomic horror! What can Johnnie do? All he can do is try to assassinate this Satanic candidate-in a climactic shootout that is recycled and lackluster and not helped by King's clumsy social commentary ('. But Johnnie also can see a horrible presidential candidate on the horizon. Johnnie Smith of Cleaves Mills, Maine, is a super-psychic after a four-year coma, he has woken up to find that he can see the future-all of it except for certain areas he calls the 'dead zone.' So Johnnie can do great things, like saving a friend from death-by-lightning or reuniting his doctor with long-lost relatives. Here he's taken on a political-suspense plot formula that others have done far better, giving it just the merest trappings of deviltry. The Stand did less well than The Shining, and The Dead Zone will do less well than either-as the King of high horror (Carrie) continues to move away from the grand-gothic strain that once distinguished him from the other purveyors of psychic melodrama.

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