Rating: 
Summary: Very Intelligent and Moving Book
Review: The tone of this novel is different from most King thriller, and it took a couple of chapters before I was fully absorbed. This is a very thoughtful book. It's more of a character study than a typical adventure with a climax that very slowly builds up. I found it refreshing to read. At this point in his life, King decided that he'd write a more mature novel than his usual horror books. It has it's share of the unusual, and captured my interest for the most part. A nice way to drift into retirement. I have read King since The Shining came out, and this book holds it's own.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacking inspiration on this one Stephen
Review: This is the way Stephen writes by the numbers when uninspired. He fashioned this book to incorporate all the essential elements of proper characterization. He forgot to breathe life into the characters inhabiting this unremarkable town in Pennsylvania. That's too bad for the readers and I really don't think Stephen gives a flip about us anyway. This book is nothing more than a stop gap throw away between "worlds" in his "Gunslinger" series. That's where he's focusing all his attention ladies and gentlemen and I can't wait to read the next installment. In the meantime, don't waste your money on this one.
Rating:
Summary: excellent reading
Review: I think this book is a must read for Stephen King fans. This book is creepy,scary fun. I had to force myself to stop reading so I could get some sleep. People think because "From a Buick 8" is about a car it will be another "Christine". Not true,in fact the way the book is written...you will probably have more "Green Mile" flashback moments than "Christine" ones. Not exactly a bad thing right???
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of King's stronger efforts
Review: First of all, although the story is about a car with "supernatural abilities," this book is NOT similar to CHRISTINE. So don't think King is rehashing old subjects. No one ever even drives this car.I remember years ago, many people criticized CUJO for feeling like a short story stretched to novel length. I didn't get that point then, as CUJO's characters were riveting, complex and thrilling for follow in their distress. FROM A BUICK 8, although fairly short for a King novel, feels like a novella bloated by an extra 150 pages or so. Most of the novel is presented as a flashback, as several members of the State police troop regale a teenage boy (whose father was recently killed while "on the job" with that troop) with the story of the Buick that they are keeping in a shed out back. Over the years, this Buick, that isn't really a Buick, has sat there, and sometimes weird things happen with it. The weird things are really all basically the same. One time a "bat like" creature comes out of the car. Another time, it's a weird "fish." Another time, some "leaves." And so on. The stories are well told, of course, King can't really write out and out boring stuff, but as I plowed through the book, I realised that nothing really INTERESTING was happening. The "monster" in this book just isn't very engaging. Also, the story is being told to this boy in one long afternoon, and I couldn't help thinking that if he was really being told the story in the same detail we were hearing it, then they actually would have sat out there for hours and hours and hours, yakking. I just don't buy it, and found it a little distracting. I'm a big King fan...BIG. Most of his books are sensational. Sometimes, though, I think he can be a bit lazy. (DARK HALF, TOM GORDON). This novel feels like it wasn't really well proofed, and it still feels sloppy. The final chapter is meant to be moving, I think, but KIng hasn't truly snared the reader and so the ending is just that...an ending, and long overdue. Really only for die-hard, completists. Don't recommend it as a first time Stephen King read, because it might be the last, and then the reader would miss true marvels like THE DEAD ZONE, THE STAND, THE SHINING, etc. etc. etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Deep Six Buick 8
Review: I'm not sure what I expected from this book. Frankly, I've felt that King hasn't been all that good for some time now, though I slogged through _Hearts in Atlantis_, _Bag of Bones_, and _Dreamcatcher_ more from a feeling of obligation than because I thought the books were worth the read. (They weren't. King always manages to drag out the verbiage well past the point where it has any impact, and he makes Tolstoy look like he had a copy editor. An example: I was listening to an audio version of _Dreamcatcher_ and one of the tapes -- an hour's worth of material -- was kaflooey. I just went on to the next tape and, really, didn't miss a beat. Still, even when King's at his worst, his writing is far beyond the merely competent. But, alas, a well-written story doesn't translate into a story worth writing or telling.) Simply put, _Buick 8_ wasn't worth the time. The structure didn't serve the narrative at all. This was one of the weakest of King's books in terms of place and setting. This could just as easily have happened in Wisconsin or Iowa or Idaho or . . . anywhere. This is probably because King isn't writing about an environment with which he's intimately familiar. Lastly, as far as I could determine, there wasn't really a story here. There was certainly no true conflict begging a resolution, and no characters for whom I developed any feeling. This read like something written just . . . because: not from passion. The irony, of course, is that the entire premise revolves around the act of telling a story that begs to be told. In the end, I was left with the same feeling that Ned has earlier: that's it? Do yourself a favor. Go back, read _The Stand_, _The Green Mile_, _Desperation_, or _The Green Mile_. Now those were stories worth writing, and reading.
Rating: 
Summary: There is more than one kind of story
Review: From a Buick 8 takes place in a police barracks. Ned, the son a of slain police officer, hangs around the barracks to hang onto all that his father was, to get to know him better, and possibly become all his father had become. Ned, stumbles upon the shed where Troop D of the Penssylvania state police keep a mysterious Buick 8 cylinder vehicle. Ned's curiousity prompts Troop D to tell Ned all about the Buick and what it has meant for the troop for the past twenty years.
This novel is a little unconventional in the way that it does not follow the guideline that we are accustomed to when reading a novel. Stephen King alludes to this literary convention in the novel itself by having the police officers excplain to Ned that he should not excpecxt any definite answers about the nature of the Buick; likewise it is not neccessary to have a story with definitive answers. Sandy tells Ned throughout the novel that he is naive to think that everything has to be clear cut. Life isn't always so clear cut (we don't always know where we have been, and we do not neccessarily know what we are going to do in the future--we don't even know for sure whether we will live to see tomorrow). I think this is King's attempt to break the wall--albeit a little unconventionally--between fiction and reality.
Rating:
Summary: too many low reviews ought to tell you something
Review: I do not see where the 4 and 5 star reviews are coming from. This wasn't a bad book-just not a really good one. Mr. King has been slipping in the quality department recently. This book doesn't really seem to go anywhere. It was a fairly quick read, but not terribly filling.
Rating:
Summary: Yawn!
Review: This book was interesting enough to keep me reading it, but only just. It was a little slow. When something did happen, it ended up being a big build up to something boring. There was never anything that seemed particularly exciting or interesting that happened. And none of the characters was all that interesting either. I was disappointed. Unless youu're just a die-hard Stephen King fan, I can't see any reason to read this. There are plenty of better books to be read, and also plenty of better King books.
Rating:
Summary: It's tough being state trooper
Review: I love Stephen King's work. Not all of it: he himself has admitted that he has written some uninspiring stories, but this is not one of those. No, this story is tuff and very emotional from its powerful begining right up to its sad ending. It's a slow story--a sad story. It's the story of a family; not a regular family, but the family of highway patrol troop D; and its the story of the love and the anger that family members evoke from each other--King describes this with incredible sorrow. As i read this book i felt heavy hearted, down right sad--in a beautiful way, though. Imagine that. Told with unique perspective, there are six narrators--and each voice is strong save for Shirley's (it's with her where i find the only problem with the book--cliche female narration.) Buick 8 has its fantasy elements, and they are fun, damn creepy at times; but the story shines brightest when Sandy Dearborne narrates--his anger with the young Ned Wilcox who is trying to deal with the greef of a fallen father (another State trooper named Curt) is painful. Sandy sees so much of Curt in Ned that it frustrates him to hell through high water because he sees the kid making the same mistakes that the father struggled with, and he's angry at Ned, and with Ned's father, but only because he loved Curt like a brother, and because he loves Ned like a nephew. And it is this conflict where we see King at his best, mirroring the emotion that we saw in Hearts in Atlantis and in The Green Mile. A beautiful story showing us that King is like a fine wine: gets better with age. Pick it up--it is well worth the price.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite of King's Works
Review: As a reader, I tend to run hot and cold with Steven King's work. Some of his novels really grab me and pull me in, like Pet Sematary, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, and Hearts in Atlantis. Others just didn't interest me at all, such as Black House, Four Past Midnight and Insomnia. This book was one that I just couldn't put down. His absolute best so far. It was suspenseful, realistic to the extent that it needed to be, extremely graphic when it needed to be as well, and full of characters that you really learned to like. I think of it as analagous to an extremely well-developed and carefully crafted "Twilight Zone" episode. This is not a book with horrifically deviant human characters that depress you because you know there are real people like that, and it is not a novel filled with gore and buckets of blood getting splashed around. It's subtle, well-written, and is proof-positive that King has evolved into one of the most creative and powerful fiction writers of modern times. If you enjoyed any of the King novels I mentioned above, then get your hands on From a Buick 8!
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