Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected from King
Review: I have never read a Stephen King book. I have seen many of his movies. This book was a completely satisfying surprise for me. It really WAS a "haunting lovestory" with so much intrigue. It wasn't what I expected from him. The main character is a successful author who, after a tragedy in his life, has more than writer's block. He becomes ill when he sits at his computer and has dreams and hallucinations that lead him down a path of danger, conspiracy, and love. I liked Michael Noonan's sense of humor in the midst of his writer's block, tragic loss, his relationship with his wife's family, and the way he deals with the spooky things that happen to him and the complicated people around him. He is a simple man who becomes entangled in the plight of a young single mother and becomes her knight in shinging armor. He also begins to uncover some history about himself, his wife, and this little town that folks there don't want uncovered. It's an intriguing maze of mystery. While this book does delve into the supernatural it's not the typical spooky stuff. It is subtle and has purpose which you find out as you eagerly turn the pages. Every emotion was tapped into:I giggled out loud, teared up, got mad, furrowed my brow and got heart palpitations, and ultimately I could not put this book down. And once I did I was completely satisfied.
Rating:
Summary: A tour de force
Review: Bag of Bones is Stephen King's most gripping, unnerving, and masterfully written novel I've ever read. I've read many of his works in the past and this has to be my favorite (though it's not easy to choose). Now, I rarely opt for the gothic romance sort of thing; but what really hooks me is Stephen King's marvelous way of introducing imagery that the audience associates with the norm- everyday things we can trust to be predictable- and twisting it into terrifying new heights. Bag of Bones follows novelist Mike Noonan, who's wife's death is a wound that time will not heal, leaving him weak and stricken with an extremely violent case of writer's block. He is haunted with feverish nightmares of his summer home which he calls Sara Laughs, a place practically soaked with lives long since past. After four years, he reluctantly returns, seeking inspiration and relief from his crumbling fortitude and is immediately pulled into the custody battle of a 21 year old trailer dwelling woman named Mattie Devore, who is trying to save her child, Kyra, from the clutches of her horrid millionaire father in law Max Devore; a man that the reader will be ashamed to share a species with. Noonan falls in love with Mattie and Kyra and defends them from Max Devore, the rumor mill, and Stephen King's trademark evils of small town America, while the forces of Sara Laughs unfold a century old mystery of the early 1900's black singer Sara Tidwell and the grisly circumstances surrounding her. While certainly discursive, it never drags. The story is mesmerizing, gripping, and unique; while Stephen King has moved on from horror fiction, his work remains thought provoking, witty, shocking, and overall very powerful.
Rating: 
Summary: Bag of Bones
Review: The book opens with a forty-year old best-selling novelist, Mike Noonan, grieving about the death of his beloved wife. Noonan's wife, Jo, died suddenly from a stroke in a strip mall parking lot four years earlier. Not only is Noonan haunted by his wife's loss, he can't shake the shock of discovering that Jo was pregnant when she died, and she never told him that she was carrying their daughter.
Mike's feelings for Jo were very strong. His ability to write seemed to have died with Jo. He can't even face the screen of his word processor. He does crossword puzzles all day and drinks too much. He even sends manuscripts that he has stashed away to his publishers. While trying to deal with his writer's block, Noonan remembers something a college professor once said. He said, "Compared to the dullest human being actually walking about on the face of the East and casting his shadow there...the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones." This is what Noonan felt like - a bag of bones.
Mike runs out of books to publish and begins to have terrible nightmares about the summer home he shared with Jo in the woods of western Maine. It seems like the nightmares were urging him to return to the large house on Dark Score Lake known as Sara Laughs.
Driven by the need to discover why Johanna kept her pregnancy from him, Mike investigates her death. He traces her steps and discovers many things that make him question himself and their relationship.
Noonan begins to experience all kinds of ghost activities in his summer home, and he is still unable to write. He discovers that a disturbing number of children died in the rural community surrounding Sara Laughs under puzzling circumstances over the last century.
Also after arriving and settling in at Sara Laughs, Mike rescues a three-year old girl, named Kyra, who is walking down the middle of a highway. After meeting Kyra's twenty-one year old mother, Mattie, a close bond develops among the three of them. A romantic interest sparks between Mike and Mattie and Mike suddenly is able to write again.
Mattie is battling with her eighty-five year old father-in-law, Max Devore, for custody of Kyra. Since Max is a billionaire, he has the whole town in his pocket and uses frightening methods to win Kyra. Mike gets involved in this custody battle.
There are very strange things goings on. Mikes discovers that Kyra can read his mind and there is a psychic connection between Kyra, Mike and some refrigerator magnets that spell out clues and pleas for help.
In the end, after a late-summer hurricane hits Dark Score Lake, the town's skeletons are brought to light and the ghosts of Sara Laughs are laid to rest.
Even though me telling you all this, there is so much more to it. Steven King goes into great detail with every word he writes, therefore giving you the feeling that you are right in the town with Noonan and the rest of his amazing charactors. Steven, in my opinion, puts more then enough detail therefore the book dragged to me. It was so long that it was hard for me to have the earge to not only finish it but to even start to read the novel. I feel that if he took out some ( not all ) of the graphic detail the book would have gone smoother and would have been easier to follow therefore shortening the book and making it less complex. This book, I feel, would make a very thrilling plot for a movie. Other than the fact the book is so long and graphic, I highly recomend it if you have the time to finish it. It's a long one.
Rating: 
Summary: Builds suspense, but then just gets messy
Review: Mike Noonan, a new widower and a best selling mystery writer, has suffered from writer's block since the death of his wife. He decides to return to the last place he was truly happy, their Maine getaway, "Sara Laughs." Considering this is a Steven King novel, you know things will start to get weird from this point on. The problem is like much of his recent work, a good idea is crushed under the weight of unnecessary prose.
The book starts out promisingly enough; King presents the reader a terrific glimpse of what happens to a writer when he can't write, his presentation of Noonan's pain over the loss of his wife is brutal to read as it is presented with a great deal of insight, and the tension and fear Noonan feels when he returns to "Sara Laughs" is definitely showing King at the height of his powers. This set up only makes you crave more.
And that's the problem; "The More" you get is a mishmash of a custody battle between an evil old man and his hard luck daughter-in-law, a town that has no stand up citizens when confronted by money, and another story of the living paying the price for their ancestors' wicked doings. At three hundred pages this might have been a heart pounding thriller; at 500 you just want it to end. From the ludicrous battle between Noonan and the old man and his far from spry assistant, to the gratuitous death of one of the lead characters (done only for shock value, it is totally unnecessary to the plot) BAG OF BONES just disappoints after the great start.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not the best
Review: I've read the book and listened to the audio book. The word here is better than the spoken word. I think King should leave the reading to others and stick to the writing. I am a devoted King fan but this one is not one of his BEST works - but then that is like saying the Mona Lisa may not be one of Da'Vinci's best works - like either one of them ever did a bad one. This is a captivating story but it takes awhile to get going - but once it does you won't put down till then end. The hero suffers the loss of his wife out of the blue - she's lying in a parking lot and he finds out she was pregnant and he didn't know it. He later finds out she was visiting their summer get-away lake house and he didn't know about those visits either. As his suspicions rise he develops a writing block and falls back on books he has written in the past and stored away for future use (I think maybe there is a litte autobiography here for King). Anyway the story centers around the lake get-away house which has a dark and stormy past with ghosts which the wife found out about and ends up warning the hero of just in time to save his life. In the mean time he meets and falls in love with a [appealing]little lady with a young daughter whose husband has died. The death of the husband is tied to old ghosts of the lake community who only the long time lake residents know about and who keep them secret. This book has many twists and turns (typical of the King pin's books) which keep you glued to story keeping all of the families and times sorted out and connected. All in all a very good story and well worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful book
Review: I absolutely loved Bag of Bones. It's a departure from King's past novels, but still retains the same storytelling skill that makes all the characters so real. It felt so easy to identify or sympathize with so many of them. This time the focus didn't seem to be scaring the reading so much as it was simply a man's story about rebuilding his life after his wife's death, which eventually leads to him getting caught up in a situation that's bigger than he thinks. The grief he feels for her death, and love of a mother for her child, the shocking realization that life is really short and fragile are all themes that come to the reader's attention without King having to push it into your face. The plot unfolds beautifully. I've read it more than a few times already, and each time I catch more and more of those small, subtle details that just add to the overall richness. It's definitely a longer book, but if you have a few nights free or plan to take a long plane ride, it's a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: Beware of the Frigerator people
Review: As most reviewers said, the first 100 pages were the toughest to get through. That was due to the "I feel so sorry for myself" Mike Noonan character. He is still grieving over his wife who died 4 years ago unexpectedly and was also pregnant. He wonders why she didn't tell him she was pregnant and the mystery starts. Mike is suddenly interested in why his wife was coming down to their summer home interviewing the town folks and not letting on to what she was doing. His investigating leds him to saving a child (Kyra) and falling in love with her mom (Mattie) to getting messages from ghosts in his summer home named Sara Laughs. Stephen King always manages to get in a few spooky feelings that you will carry around with you for some time to come. I say beware of refridgerator magnets especially those alphabet ones, be very afraid of old folks in wheelchairs sucking on oxygen and their caretaker and stuffed moose with bells around their necks.Most of the people that gave this book a bad review belong in the group that I like to call "people who don't read regularly and are looking for a fluff book". If you had the patience and intelligence to understand the book you would have liked where King was going with the book but since you can't read you call the book bad. Maybe you should'nt limit yourself to one style of reading and then just maybe you can appreciate change. I say you will just have to get used to the idea that King changes his writing style with the wind and if you were a "true fan" you would accept this change without complaints.
Rating:
Summary: best book to read
Review: The story opens to a 40-year-old man by the name of Mike Noonan. He is talking about how his wife, Jo, died and how that she never told him that she was pregnant with their daughter. He can't shake the feeling of shock off, and he seems to have writer's block. This becomes apparent when he can't stand to look at his computer and all he does is drink and do crossword puzzles at the kitchen table. Throughout the first couple of chapters, Mike starts to have dreams about Manderley, their cabin in Maine, but all he can do in his dream is stand at the beginning of the driveway and not move, just staring down the driveway towards Sara Laughs (the name of the cabin).
As time goes on, Mike is expected to give a new manuscript of his latest book to his publishers. Since he has had writer's block since about the time Jo died, he kept a large folder of manuscripts in a safe deposit box in the local bank in Derry, where he lives. He had one manuscript left in the box. He sends that one to the publishers. Not long after, Mike decides to go to Sara Laughs. The dreams (or nightmares) that he has been having have just about driven him over the edge. He discovers that Jo had been going to Sara Laughs many times without him knowing. He meets a two young ladies, who he becomes enamored with, and an old man, who has never talked to him before, is now making threats towards him to leave Manderley or mind his own business. He soon uncovers a mystery that pulls everyone in that he knows and holds dear.
Mike is the main character in the novel. Everything comes from his point of view. The reader is put into his place and can kind of see everything from Mike's own eyes. The detail in this book is really extraordinary. The description paints a picture in the reader's mind about where everything is and how it appears. The development of the novel is very interesting. It starts out like it is just telling you about a dead woman and how her husband is trying to cope with that fact. As the novel progresses, the idea of just Mike trying to cope with something is turned into something more.
I highly recommend reading this book. I loved it. The imagery and how the characters were placed in this novel are on the overwhelming side. When you think that one thing is going to happen or someone is going to hook up with another, the story takes a twist and something happens to make that thing that you expected to happen, not happen. The book will definitely keep you sitting on the edge of your seat and never wanting to put the book down. When the end comes, you want to scream in frustration because it seems that there should be something more in the end of the book. Like I said before, I highly recommend reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but loooooong winded...
Review: Stephen King has always been underrated as a writer. Realistic and engaging characters have always been the backbone of his tales, giving the supernatural elements the base necessary to for us to accept. But do we really need to read about such details as the contents of the main character's garbage can or each and every random digressive thought that pops into the narrator mind? Nuance begins to feel self-indulgent when it strays so often and so far from the relevant story-line.
To be fair, I'm only half way through the book, and I do indeed like what I'm reading, but I find myself skipping over the ADD-like observations the main character can't seem to help but share with us, no matter how removed it is from the direction of the plot. It reminds me of that Steve Martin line in PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES... "Not everything is an anecdote. You have to pick and choose!"
Again, I am enjoying this book, but I wish the editors had sharpened their knives a bit when cutting the fat off this book.
Rating:
Summary: hardly a romance or horror
Review: king has disapointed me for many occasions now...his "bag of bones" is a boo. story is about a writer solving a mystery after his wife's accidental death. suspense begins w/ what he found in his wife's purse on her death day. There are romance, horror and suspense in the book, but none of them fits in the corresponding profile. romance part is ok but i fell king can surely use more development on the intimate scene. horror - nah, i didn't think it was scary. suspense - nah, it was nothing after all...all too shallowly developed...i don't think it's a good book worth buying. maybe it deserves a place in a local library.
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