Tentatively trying to be back here. How the hell do you navigate this place? dididave elsewhere
Tentatively trying to be back here. How the hell do you navigate this place? dididave elsewhere
Member since:08.03.2005
Reviews:124
Members who trust:43
Trisha has had enough. On yet another rambling holiday with her mum and brother all she can hear is them bickering about her dad. Walking along a nature trail Trisha starts to drop further and further behind and when she stops for a toilet break in the woods manages to lose them altogether. "Good", she thinks. Unfortunately, as she tries to find her way back to the trail she ends up disorientated and deep in the woods. With no sign of the trail and only a stream to guide her Trisha starts to see horrific visions in the deep, disquiet of the woods. Are they part of her imagination or is the creature she imagines stalking her real? Good job she has her companion Baseball player Tom Gordon to comfort her.
"The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" is a cracking horror/thriller by Stephen King. King takes the old Brothers Grimm style fairytale
of the child lost in the woods to a new level in this desperate tale of a young girls attempts at survival. As a horror novel King plays on our most primal fears, those of the dark and isolation to create a despairing tale of a girl helpless in the woods. Her stumbling journey through the woods is an altogether disturbing as King describe mosquitoes as "blood sucking parasites feeding on her eyelids while she sleeps". The presence Trisha feels throughout the novel is a foreboding one and provides create tension in its cat and mouse toying and watching of Trisha. We do not know if it is monster or human yet we fear it and in turn for for Trisha.
This is one of few King novels were we truly empathise with the heroine. Who could not feel for Trisha, the scared child lost in the woods? By using a child as the central character who drives the novel he also plays on my own worst fear as a parent, that of losing your child and being able to do nothing to help them. The fact that in many respects this is the parents fault only adds to the anguish. "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" is a pacey, nervous read. Throughout the novel days pass quickly being all too short before the onset of the dangerous night (another fear played up tremendously by King).
At times disturbing, this is a novel were the awaiting fear of "the thing in the woods" is coupled with the simple plights of hunger, thirst and disease. As Trisha drinks foul water and is treated to vomiting and diarrhoea I urge for her rescue yet know her saviour it is not forthcoming. There is but one ray of hope. Trisha's hallucinatory visions of Baseball pitcher "Tom Gordon" along with her escapism while listening to the Red Sox game son her walkman provides a sense of hope, advice and lends Trisha the perseverance to blunder on.
This is a novel that has you willing Trisha on. With her being the only character for the majority of the novel King has to make sure we empathise and pity her and as she stumble into thorns and wasps nests his torture of her works perfectly in ensuring I root for her from the start. The imagery of the dark woods in their ominous twilight along with the muddy bogs and thorny bracken Trisha must negotiate seem to stack the impossibility of her escape against her yet for some reason you always feel a sense of hope.
This is a pacey, gut wrenching novel akin to the dark tales of the Bogeyman you were told as a kid. King mixes a "If you go down to the woods today" theme with horrific visions to create a modern nightmare of a fairytale in which all you want to do is wake up. At times Trisha's plight is almost too disturbing to read on yet ,like any good horror novel you just have to know what happens next.
At 224 pages this is a short, action packed novel the likes of which King rarely produces nowadays. The simplistic, childlike descriptions largely add to the dangerous atmosphere of the novel and this is a novel you will finish quickly just to see if the heroine survives her ordeal. Every horror fan should read "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" as it is an excellent example of suspenseful horror that chooses to rely on tension rather than gore and is all the better for it. Survival horror as it should be done.
ISBN: 0340765593 £3.99 in paperback at amazon.uk
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Stephen King has been for so long the master of the thick blockbuster horror paperback ... more
that it is salutary to be reminded of the quieter writer of shorter, tighter stories that he also is. His new novella could hardly be simpler--a nine-year-old girl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Stephen King has been for so long the master of the thick blockbuster horror paperback ... more
that it is salutary to be reminded of the quieter writer of shorter, tighter stories that he also is. His new novella could hardly be simpler--anine-year-old girl,...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Stephen King has been for so long the master of the thick blockbuster horror paperback ... more
that it is salutary to be reminded of the quieter writer of shorter, tighter stories that he also is. His new novella could hardly be simpler--a nine-year-old girl...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Jun 19th, 2006
very helpful by (100%):
