Rating: 
Summary: Very impressive.. The best of King's later work
Review: Stephen King's " Bag of Bones" revolves around best selling author Mike Noonan. Mike's wife dies tragically, and four years later Mike is still not able to accept the loss. Mike suddenly develops writer's block, and is plagued by terrifying nightmares about his vacation home that he refers to as "Sara Laughs". Determined to face his nightmares, he forces himself to return to the lakeside getaway. Mike soon discovers that the town is under the influence of the powerful millionaire Max Devore. Max has become obsessed with getting custody of his three-year-old granddaughter Kyra, to intentionally take her away from his ex-daughter in law Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie's and Kyra's struggle, as he falls in love with both of them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs. His home has become the new site of terrifying visitations. Now Mike is determined to find out what evil forces he has unleashed by returning, and what they want with him. Before reading this book, I figured that King's best work was behind him. However, I was very impressed, and I feel that "Bag of Bones" deserves a spot on King's top 10 list. Usually when you have a story that is split between two different aspects, you find yourself choosing one side over the other. In "Bag of Bones", both sides of the story - Max saving Mattie and Kyra and Max dealing with the ghost, are equally enjoyable, and it is impossible to choose between the two. I am also a huge fan of books that are written in a first person narative, and King was brilliant in that aspect. You really feel like you are listening to Mike Noonan and not just a character that King has created. King also created very realistic dialogue that will make you feel like you are getting to know the characters personally. Mike is my favorite character because of all the different things that he must deal with. He is still grieving the loss of his wife, dealing with terrifying visitations from a ghost, and fighting the town's most powerful man to defend Mattie and Kyra. Watching Mike fall in love with them is very touching, and the father/daughter relationship that develops between Kyra and Mike is great. Max Devore is an evil and dispicable villan that adds major suspense to the story. The combination of Max's actions and the ghost, will give you the creeps. "Bag of Bones" combines a terrifying ghost story, with an emotional and touching story of love and redemption. King's brilliant use of terror and emotion, will make this book an instant favorite of yours. Bag of Bones shows that King still has what it takes to be considered the master of horror.
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Summary: Love and Vengeance from beyond the Grave
Review: Michael Noonan is a forty-year-old novelist who can't get over the loss of his wife four years earlier. Not only is he alone, but it seems his abiltity to write passed away with his wife. Fortunately for him he's had several manuscripts hidden away and he has been putting them out year by year as if he'd just written them. But eventually he runs out of manuscripts, then he begins having horrific nightmares about the summer home he shared with his wife in the woods of western Main on Dark Score lake. Hoping to overcome his writer's block and whatever's causing the bad dreams, he packs up and goes there. Soon after his arrival he meets and is captivated by a three-year-old child named Kyra, who is in the middle of a custody battle between her widowed mother and her paternal grandfather, a malevolent millionaire. Mike gets involved in the case and starts to fall for Kyra's mother. And now he can write again. By the time things come to a head, Mike finds out just how far both love and evil can reach out from beyond the grave in this spooky love story. In "Bag of Bones" Mr. King effectively plays on our fears of ghosts and things that go bump in the night. But he also delves into what else can terrify you, like the fear of losing the one you love in this different kind of love story that is also a story of redemption and of vengeance, vengeance of the dead. It is a Stephen King novel after all.
Rating:
Summary: I don't understand
Review: It's been a while since I read Bag of Bones but I don't understand the negative reviews. Horror is my first love; therefore, I have read MANY books by King. I can't say I enjoyed every book as much as the other and there were even a couple I couldn't finish BUT Bag of Bone was a quick and easy read. At one point, I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face yet at the same time I was so 'uneasy' I called my son into my room to read the passage that had just scared and tickled me to him, just to have his company.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good book.
Review: I enjoyed this book a lot. It is well written and I was unable to second guess the author. I read right through it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bag of Nothing
Review: So King doesn't like to plot his novels, huh? Well, it shows. And it's painful. For pages and pages and pages, I got the uneasy feeling that King just made this up as he went. And with each page, I was loosing more interest in how the ending was going to turn out. The main reason I kept reading is because the beginning is pretty mysterious. The first person character of Michael Noonan describes, in plain detail, the death of his wife. And you can believe that he is heartbroken. But that knack for plain detail fades and King describes Noonan's misery for chapters and chapters. I could feel my beard grow. And this is something I never thought King could keep under control: his description is so heavey that it weighs you down. In particular, the dream sequences in Bag of Bones are arduous. Where reality stops and dreaming begins is a fuzzy line here and no one is your friend in deciphering it. The only other part of Bag of Bones that had any kind of weight to it was when Noonan's dead wife began to haunt him in his summer home. I almost believed in ghosts when that started happening. Unfortunately, this verisimilitude overstayed its welcome and I returned to being bored. In fact, the rest of the book is such a drag that I no longer sympathized with Noonan's plight of being a widow, being haunted in his summer home, getting tied up with a local lady and her evil millionaire father-in-law, and blah blah blah. Because of Bag of Bones, I am doubting that I will read another Stephen King novel anytime soon. As for this book, I don't plan to return to it at all.
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Summary: Bag Of Bones: Unbelievable Read
Review: Bag Of Bones has become my all time favorite King novel. I have read at least 4 times and find something new in it each time. I'm currently reading it for a 5 time, and I still get chills reading it. It isn't as gory as some of his horror books, but the mystery is still intact. I love the genius of this book. It's an amazing love story, with so many twists along the way.
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Summary: I couldn't put it down
Review: I really, really enjoyed this book. Mr. King has written a lot of books through the years and I enjoyed this one as much as any of the others. The characters in his novels become people you can actually see in your mind. I know when I read a book and when I have finished I'm upset that I finished it so fast that it was definately a great read! I did not like the way this book ended, but what can you do? I hear they are making a movie out of it. Hope they don't screw it up. If it is well done it will be one of the best scarey movies of all times.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Satisfying
Review: This book was engaging from the first page, and it did not let me go until the end. The plot is a little convoluted, but this did not detract at all from its charm, in my opinion. King has a gift for creating characters that we care about, and this gift was brilliantly displayed in BoB. The simple truth is that even at his worst, King is more readable, more entertaining, and more satisfying than any other pop fiction novelist I am aware of.
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Summary: Stephen King Romance
Review: This book was awesome! From the first paragraph to the last sentence, I simply could not put it down! I have recommended this book to so many people--I refer to "Bag of Bones" as the "romance novel according to Stephen King". I love Stephen King and he is my idol. I am an aspiring writing myself, and, even though I cannot master the genre of horror fiction as Stephen King has,in this book I have found my inspiration. I will always look up to him, and his legacy will live on long after he ceases to write.
Rating:
Summary: An Enthralling and Thrilling Novel
Review: Although this was my first Stephen King book, and therefore I cannot compare it to his other novels, I can still say it was an excellent book. While it did start out slowly in the beginning, and even got a little worse, once Mike Noonan, a best-selling author, moves to his haunted vacation home Sarah Laughs, I could not put Bag of Bones down. Mike tries to cope with his wife's unexpected death as he discovers the secrets of Sarah Laughs and finds himself in a custody battle against a wealthy computer whiz. This novel finds its own ways to be haunting, and you will surely be absorbed into its quick moving plot. King even finds a way to mix a romantic story into this novel, and as long as you can endure the first 60 pages or so, this will most definetly become one of your favorite books.
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