The Long Walk / Stephen King / 384 pages

Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman.  This book reminded me of Hunger Games, although it predates it.  All twelve year olds must test for the Long Walk - a grueling competition with only one winner.  The winner gets whatever he wishes for the rest of his life.  The losers get death.  The ending is quite satisfying!  This is the first novel Stephen King ever wrote, begun eight years before Carrie was published in 1974, when he was a freshman at the University of Maine, 1966-67.