Rating: 
Summary: Stephen King has yet another triumph with Bag of Bones...
Review: This great storyteller has never failed to entertain me with his work. I have read a great deal of his books and I believe each one to be worth whatever money I must shell out for it. Every book that has come out of Bangor, Maine has been great on the basic scale of 1 to 10, but each of his novels has had its own special aspects that make it different and singular. My favorite work has to be Eyes of the Dragon due to the fact the plot was airtight and stunningly clever, it was so unlike anything else of his I had read before it. Bag of Bones wasn't a "scary" (for lack of a better term) book, it was simply haunted. It seemed to me that Mr. King was reaching for something beyond the boogeyman in the closet on this one. The plot was above and beyond anything he has come up with before, and I applaud him for his fine work and his ability to amaze me with his ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: Bag Of Goodies!
Review: I thought this book was outstanding. As King gets older, the more I find I am enjoying his work. There was a time that I was afraid he had stagnated, and that I was going to have to give up on him, but he hath vanquished those fears, by gorry! While I thought "Wizard And Glass" was better, they are too disimilar to really compare. I enjoyed this book on several levels, and stopped several times to admire a particular phrase, sentence, or paragraph. When I finished the book, I wanted to turn to the first page, and start all over again.
Rating: 
Summary: To bad a great beginning did not translate into a great end.
Review: Stephen King once again cannot overcome a great beginning and come up with a great ending. Bag of Bones is one of his greatest works for about 497 pages and then it all falls apart in the last 30. What starts out as a spooky romance novel turns, as most of King's novels tend to do, into a gory ending. I believe that it was Mr. King himself that said if you cannot scare them, then horrify them, if you cannot horrify them make it so gory it makes them sick. If Mr. King did not say that exact phrase he certainly sticks by it. What was his greatest turns into another gory King ending much in the line with, The Long Walk, Cujo, and Geralds Game. It is certainly worth the read, but I would suggest that the reader make up his/her own ending. ----Kris Aungst---
Rating:
Summary: Audio cassette version is a real killer!
Review: I am not a big fan of SK, but I have read some of his books. Bag of Bones sounded interesting, and I picked up the audio version the other day. When I did, I did not notice that the narration was done by SK himself. The story was enjoyable, but my God, to listen to SK whine away for 20 hours was almost more than I could take. He makes no attempt to 'act out' any of the parts of the book and just rattles on and on. The plot was interesting, but think twice about the audio version.
Rating:
Summary: BAG of BONES Great!
Review: CHAPTER 1 from BAG OF BONES was GREAT. Stephen King has embarked on a new writing style and I hope he publishes a few more the same way. I felt like I was actually there and cant wait to continue my reading on September 22nd when the full book comes out.
Rating:
Summary: The book really connected
Review: I became a huge fan of King because he could make me forget everything around me when I read his books. I have not been able to recapture this feeling in his last couple of books - but believe me, this one did. After the first two pages I was hooked (another of his trades I admine - being able to capture the reader so fast), and could not put the book down.Another indication that this is one of his best books, is that I felt enraged with some of the things King did to the characters in the book. "Who does he think he is, when he makes us connect with the characters in the book and then later manipulate them with no regard of the readers feelings".
Rating:
Summary: A Multi-Dimensional Story
Review: Bag of Bones is a festival of dark thoughts, profound emotions, and complex characters. Stephen King has written an intimate story unlike any other of his works. Of course, commonalities with his other novels abound within Bag of Bones, e.g. the setting in Maine, the hero as writer, and the relationship between community and its history, but these don't appear to the reader as regurgitated devices, but rather serve themes King has only briefly touched upon in earlier books. This makes for a refreshing change especially for readers already familiar with King's penchant for occasional bombastic plotline elements. These are few and far between in Bag of Bones. At the same time, in reading this story, I was left with the impression that a great deal of effort went into it's telling. And this too is a new aspect to King's writing. In previous books, his voice seemed at times glib and off hand, whereas Bag of Bones reads both seriously and honestly. Readers should expect a different experience with Bag of Bones, but no less rewarding than the very best of his other stories.
Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: This is one of Stephen King's best book yet. He changes the pace . . . no more Desperation or any other horror physcopathical events like that, this is completely different, a new turn. I loved it. Not only is King a good writer, but he is a good role model for people. I encourage anyone to go out and read this book; you will be surprised.
Rating:
Summary: Bag of Bones makes you happy you learned how to read.
Review: In light of the several controversies surrounding the publication of Bag of Bones, some may be quick to ignore the actual content of the novel. King himself has been fond of saying critics prefer to review his contracts rather than his novels. But in time, the memory of contracts and money subside, and readers are still left with the book - and what a book it is. The phrase "Stephen King's best writing in years" (in addition to giving a coyly phrased snub to King's recent work) is bandied about often and now holds little meaning. But know this: the magic that brings King's best fiction to life is at work here, and in years it probably will be thought of as one of Stephen king's best books. It begins with a writer named Michael Noonan, telling us about the death of his wife, Johanna. The death itself plays out in a quiet sort of tragedy in the opening pages. Soon after, Noonan begins to suffer from writer's block, crushing grief, and a series of terrifying nightmares that he can't remember upon waking. These dreams center on his summer home on Dark Score Lake (a site familiar to King readers), the place where he and his wife Jo had always been happiest. The small cabin is known as Sara Laughs, named after a popular black singer who dies on Dark Score roughly two decades into the twentieth century. In the wake of all this misery, Noonan decides to revisit Sara Laughs, symbolically confronting all his fears at once. What he doesn't imagine is that symbolic fears will soon be the least of his worries. Because Sara Laughs is haunted ... and the spirits are restless. But the worst is still to come. Soon after Noonan comes back to town, he runs into a young woman named Mattie Devore and her daughter, Kyra. Mattie is half his age and beautiful, and Mike is taken at once with a surprising lust for her. Even more unexpectedly, he begins to develop an almost paternal love for Kyra, which may be partly due to the fact that his wife had been weeks pregnant before she died. Mike learns that Kyra and Mattie are both in trouble: the girl's grandfather, aging computer magnate William Devore has plans to take custody of Kyra using some very dark and, at times, terrifying methods. There is a custody battle, which at first seems prosaic, but only until we discover the supernatural underpinnings of Devore's need to posess his granddaughter, and why it's so important for Mike to prevent it. The closing sequences open up into realms of the supernatural King hasn't even touched before; most importantly, a more thoroughly examined view of ghosts and why they come back to haunt the living. As with many Stephen King novels (Misery, Desperation, and Rose Madder being the most obvious) , the title Bag of Bones has multiple meanings; at first, the phrase is metaphorical, later divulging its literal (and shocking) meaning. The final scenes may surprise some readers; they are unusually tight for a King novel (one of the major complaints with the bulk of King's work is that the endings drag on for days), at once scary, supernatural, and quite moving. While the actual body count is significantly lower than, say, Needful Things, the deaths are all that much more disturbing. This is not a plot-by-numbers exercise. King has stated that he wanted to return to his Maine turf to write one more scary novel before he turned fifty. Fair enough. Here, King certainly returns to Maine, scattering references to such familiar places as Derry and Castle Rock, and such people as Thad Beaumont (The Dark Half) and Bill Denbrough (It). And lest you worry; Bag of Bones is that scary novel. But it is also a new sort of book for King, written entirely in the first person (unlike the shifting-point-of-view of Christine and the spoken word monologue of Dolores Claiborne), and examining the art and business of writing more intimately than ever before. He also explores love and lust more frankly, too, having shied away from healthy sexual relationships in his past works. And the ending, while hopefully not prophetic, reveals a more assured writer than the one who published Carrie in the mid-seventies. Stephen King, in the voice of Michael Noonan,, tells us he has grown up, but he still packs a punch, and don't you forget it. Bag of Bones is an intense, electrifying novel. It would be a career-booster if King needed one. Equally appealing to fans of "early King" and to those of "recent King," as well as a strong enough book to give to someone who has never read a Stephen King book before. Instantly engrossing, swiftly paced, and very, very scary, Bag of Bones is the type of book that makes you glad you learned how to read. No bones about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Advanced praise of Stephen King's Bag of Bones
Review: "I loved Bag of Bones. It's Stephen King for the new millenium, with all the heart and wit showing through the suspense. I always knew he'd do this. Such an evocation of love, grief and healing." -- Anne Rivers Siddons "For years I've been saying that Stephen King is much more than just a horror fiction writer. And I believe that he's never been given credit for taking American literature and stretching its boundaries. Bag of Bones proves me right. It is a love story about the dark places within us all, a metaphor for the act of creativity itself." -- Gloria Naylor "What I admire most about Bag of Bones is its intelligence of voice, not only the craftsmanship -- the indelible sense of place, the well-fleshed chracters, the unstoppable story line -- but the witty and obsessive voice of King's powerful imagination. It places both the ghost story and Stephen King in their proper place on the shelf of literary American fiction." -- Amy Tan
|
