Tuesday 10 September 2013

Devouring Stephen King: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

"The world had teeth, and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted."

Ah, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. When you decide to do something stupid like read every single Stephen King book ever, when you've already read quite a few of them, there are bound to be some that you're not really bothered about encountering ever again. Whilst I didn't dread The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon like I do, say, Dreamcatcher (I hate it. I hate it so much. And it's a mere 2 books away.) I still wasn't desperate to read it again, like I am, say, the last three books of The Dark Tower.

Anyway. Enough about me. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is about a girl. Who loves Tom Gordon.
(Tom Gordon being apparently a real life baseball player and zzzzzzz) And who also happens to be walking in the woods with her mum and brother when she goes off the path to pee and gets completely and horribly lost. And she wanders around in the woods for days and stuff happens and there's a really stupid supernatural element aaaaand that's about the whole book.

The thing about The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is, even if you hate it (which I don't! I just don't particularly like it) it's at least short, so you don't feel like you're about to die of boredom while you're reading it. Having said that, though, it also almost felt too long for what it was- there's only so much you can read about one girl's struggle to survive in the wilderness before you almost don't care anymore. In some ways this book reminded me of The Body (which was also Stand by Me) only with more peril, and I felt like it would also have benefitted from being novella-length, rather than a full sized novel.

But. The main character is a girl!
Now, I actually think King has a fairly good track record with his representation of women (if I didn't think that, I don't think I would have been able to keep reading him for so long) but it's a rare thing where his main character (and in this book, Trisha is basically the only character) is a girl, and even rarer when that girl isn't a victim of some kind of abuse. Better than that though, Trisha is sort of awesome- she's a nine year old who manages to forage in the woods for food, escape insect attacks, and walk into a whole other State to try and find her own way out. Not bad for a girl, huh?

She's also a girl who loves baseball, which makes me partially want to go 'Yessssss, girls like sports too!' but in reality it was more like 'ughhhhh, baseball' because I don't really enjoy reading about a sport that firstly, I don't really understand because it's not something we have in the UK, but also that what I do understand I find kind of boring? The point is, this is something King often includes in his books, and it's never going to be something I find very interesting, although I understand why he does it and I'm not going to scold him for it. I'll just continue to yawn my way through those parts.

So, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It's fine, but it doesn't set my world on fire. If you were the kind of child whose nightmares were centred on being lost in the woods, then this will probably scare the bejeesus out of you, but I'm from England and there probably aren't even any woods here you couldn't find your way out of in, say, a day. Which, incidentally, is about as long as it'll take to finish this book, ensuring that you don't waste too much of your time on it. Which isn't something I'd recommend.

17 comments:

  1. Huh. This one doesn't sound so scary and mind-disfiguring as his other books. Which MAYBE means I could read it one day.

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    1. See, I definitely want to say that people who don't like the scary so much should read this, because it's really not so scary at all (unless you're a child. And go into woods a lot) but I also don't want to say that because it's not so good? And I don't want people (you) to read it and go 'Stephen King. Really?'

      If we're talking non-scary, I'm going to have to point you towards The Green Mile OR Different Seasons, which is four novellas, only one of which is at all supernaturally scary (and actually it's kind of sweet, really.)

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  2. So I still don't really remember this book much (there's a bit with a bear right?) but I do remember thinking it would absolutely be best as a short story/novella. Which could have been because I was 13 and just wanted MOAR HORRORZ, but also I think that King's non-horror often works best in the shorter length (with exceptions obvs).

    Also you are WRONG about baseball. As someone who grew up with cricket in the house 24/7 any other sport is magic in comparison. Fuck cricket.

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    1. There IS a bit with a bear! I'd forgotten all about that bit, actually, so at least there was slightly the element of surprise there. I definitely think novella length would have been better for this- short story would be too short, but this was too long (and it's actually quite short!) I didn't even necessarily want MOAR HORRORZ with this, just, like, for it to be better than it was.

      Oh dude, don't EVEN get me started on cricket (it is the boringest) but that doesn't mean I can't dislike baseball too! Basically the only sport I give a shit about is tennis, tbh.

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  3. You don't REALLY have read Dreamcatch do you? Can't you get one mulligan?

    I don't think I'm going to be reading this one. Yay for lady lead but yeah no, I'm good.

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    1. I don't know what a mulligan is (ok, fine, wikipedia told me) but kind of... no? I'm sticking with this one to the end! (Or... I'll start to read it again and see if it somehow got any better, and THEN I'll decide).

      Yeah, you're fine not to read this. It definitely wouldn't make any of my top anything lists.

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  4. Yeah, this one's definitely not one of my favorite Stephen Kings. I went into it expecting horror, and it wasn't all that horror-y, so disappointment. Looking back, I don't know if this book had an identity crisis or I had an unmet expectation crisis, because I like Stephen King even when he's not doing horror, but this book? Kind of a snooze.

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    1. I like Stephen King when he's not doing horror too, but this one just realllly doesn't do anything for me. But, they can't all be winners!

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  5. Hmm, I like the sound of the main character. It's too bad it didn't really come together.

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    1. Trisha IS kind of awesome. I feel like if I'd read this when I was 9 (hmmm... Might be a BIT scary for that) she would have been my personal hero for like a week, but now I'm just admiring of her in an 'aw, bless' way, which is probably bad. But yeah, it's sort of *whispers* dull, but maybe that's just because I'm used to ALL THE OTHER KING where, you know, a lot more stuff happens.

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  6. This was the first Stephen King book that I read and I mostly enjoyed it, but I am from Maine originally and so getting lost in the Maine woods was a fear that crossed my mind when I was a child. I wasn't into the baseball bit as much either and the bear bit was a little corny maybe, but that deer god thing was rather spooky, I thought. - Christy

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    1. Yeah, that's what I thought! There are really no woods anywhere near where I live, OR really in the whole country, so I don't really have a concept of how scary that could be! Although, obviously, there's that whole child-fear of getting lost so yeah.

      The deer God bit was quite freaky, but overall I really just wasn't that scared of this. Which is not what I expect from King!

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  7. Hmmmm... I AM intrigued by a kick-ass 9-year old little girl as the main character. I haven't particularly liked the women in the King books I've read so far (a total of 2, btw), so I wonder if I would like her a lot.

    Baseball SUCKS. You are so lucky to not have baseball in the UK. It is the most boring thing in the world to watch, except maybe golf. Those are equally boring.

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    1. I feel like you'd like Trisha (although, ooooh, which women?) cause she's pretty kind of stoic and level headed and awesome, although she's not immune to, you know, crying because she's lost in the woods at times. Because she's NINE. I don't really have any complaints about her as a character, it's just that there's only so much you can read about a big walk in the woods before you start to nod off a bit!

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  8. Hmm. I've read a grand total of two Stephen King books - one of them I quite liked and the other I ADORED BEYOND ALL LOGICAL REASON. Saying that, when looking for other King books to read, I've been avoiding straight-out horror, which is why I liked the look of this one, to the point where I was actually looking FOR it in charity shops.

    It sucks that it's not that great, but then again I have much less to compare it to than you do! I still fancy reading it, if only because I haven't read a bad King book yet.

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    1. Wait, yes I have! I forgot about The Gunslinger! *nudges it with her foot distastefully*

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    2. I think you should definitely read it! ESPECIALLY because you're not looking for the AAAARGH horror so much, cause this definitely doesn't provide that, at all. It's not terrible, anyway, it's just nowhere near my favourite. But I kind of have a lot to choose from!

      It hurts my heart that The Gunslinger is the first in The Dark Tower series because it GETS SO GOOD! I swear! *cries until you read The Drawing of the Three*

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