Rating: 
Summary: The Most Underrated King Novel
Review: I can see why some people might be turned off from Gerald's Game due to the kinky theme. But it's hard to deny that this is probably his most wickedly terrifying novel to date. An upper class lawyer's wife, chained to a bed, out in the middle of nowhere is forced to face her past. All the while, the sound of a chainsaw is heard in the distance, and a starving dog enters the house. She is hearing voices in her head, she thinks she sees an awful looking man in the shadowed corner, staring at her. There was one part in particular that grossed me out (it's towards the end, you'll see when you get there). Also, this is one of the best endings that King has ever come up with. It wrapped up nicely, not leaving me with any questions or doubts. If you are into psycological horror, and are not bothered by the sexual content, then give this one a try. Chau.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good!
Review: I'm not a big fan of King I find his novels ponderous, convoluted, too many plots, unbelieveable, with corny dialogue, goofy characters, lousy endings. But every once in awhile I find a book of his entertaining "Gerald's Game" was pretty good over all, it was interesting, suspensful, simple and scary, if not overlong(I would have given it (5) stars but the ending stunk) I chewed my fingernails off! dreading turning the page. My favorites so far are all his short stories, I guess I gravitate more towards his simpler books (Cujo, Misery, Carrie, Deloris Claibourne, which were excellent) instead of King's epic travesties (Dreamcatcher,IT,The Stand)
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Terrifying
Review: This book was possibly the scariest thing Stephen King has ever written, with the exception of Pet Sematary.
Rating:
Summary: Love & Marriage---and lingering, violent death.
Review: I think this criminally underrated little potboiler is one of Stevie King's four best novels (the others being "The Stand", "Desperation", and Salem's Lot"), and just like the other books where the Master is at the top of his game, "Gerald's Game" cuts to the chase and gets about its bloody business right from the start. Jessie Burlingame is the wife of successful corporate attorney Gerald, her husband of 20 years. Gerald has a little personality quirk, a kinky sex game he likes to play occasionally with his good and faithful wife: he likes to handcuff Jessie to a bed in the bedroom of the remote little cabin they own on the woodsy shore of Dark Score Lake, as a prelude---one supposes---to love. He has even picked up a special set of police handcuffs for the occasion. And within the amount of time it takes for a set of handcuff lock tumblers to go 'snicker snack', Gerald's game takes a horrible, fatal twist, leaving Jessie manacled to a piece of heavy wood furniture, her only companions the stiffening corpse of her husband and a barking, unseen dog. And of course, this being vintage Stephen King Country, those aren't the only companions Jessie has---there are Others, naturally, but they just prefer to make their appearance when the sun goes down, when Jessie's increasingly frenzied imagination has plenty of elbow room to do its frightful work. King likes to write about modern American men and women who are placed in dire peril and whose faculties are stretched to the limits of sanity and beyond, but "Gerald's Game" ups the ante by burying the reader deep inside Jessie Burlingame's panicked mind; this is a book about interiors, not exteriors. The narrator never leaves Jessie's fevered and restive brain, and, with the exception of dreams and flights of fancy, what we have could easily be shot as a one-set play. Because King is able to bring his considerable talents to bear on such an intimate canvas, "Gerald's Game" is a long, dark, wickedly sick joke, relentlessly creepy. Despite the spare and limited setting, there are lots of nasty visitors to this dark banquet, not least of which are the voices in Jessie's head, the corpse of her husband, her long dead father, a wandering and hungry (rabid?) dog, spooky sounds in the darkened cabin, and that chestnut of the terror tale: Something in the Woods that wants in. "Gerald's Game" is the Master at his finest, a taut, brilliantly paced little page-turner with a harrowing twist that would make "Sixth Sense" director M. Night Shyamalan envious. Keep the night light on for this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Longing for adventure
Review: I have to agree, this book was very detailed and the plot was exciting and kept you on your toes however there was a period of neverending silence. For someone like myself who doesn't read much, it made it extremely hard to want to finish the book.
Rating:
Summary: Good Writing, Mediocre Book
Review: The story begins and continues, and continues, and continues in Jessie and Gerald Burlingame's lake cabin bedroom where a sex game ends tragically. I give King credit for his excellent writing, but this excellent writing gives him the ability to write page after page after page about almost nothing. I read the first third of the book hoping desperately that the pace would pick up. At that point I finally did something I never do, read snatches and bits in the rest of the book, and, of course, the ending. King's protagonist is Jessie Burlingame, and he does a good job of getting inside the mind of a woman. I just didn't care particularly for that woman. The other two King books I read are "Salem's Lot" and "The Green Mile," both superb. Those two books are so good that it is hard to believe the same person authored "Gerald's Game". I'll probably read more King books, as "two out of three ain't bad!"
Rating:
Summary: What's Going On Here?
Review: This book is so different in character from other Stephen King books that I have read (which is nearly all of them) that within 10 pages I found myself wondering how it could have been written by him at all. No matter what the particulars, this book has a tiresome plot common to many works of lesser authors (submissive-but-savvy-chick frees herself from psychological male dominion with the help of two patently contrived plot "metaphors"). The lead character was annoying, unsympathetic, and shallow (and no, hearing many voices of other equally annoying and cardboard-thin characters does not give you depth). The pace was mind-numbing--it was fluorane in print. But all of this can be forgiven (though not enjoyed), if there were not something more deeply troubling here. Two aspects in particular make me skeptical that this is the same author who produced such works as Hearts in Atlantis and The Green Mile and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The first was the dialogue, internal and external. It was beyond--or should I say below--cliche. I have never heard dialogue like this from King. The second I have already alluded to--it is the transparent contrivance of the metaphors ("the day the sun went out" was an especially tiresome and repetitious piece of melodrama). It just felt phony--something else I have never expected to find in a King book. King is a master. This book is not worthy of him. Either (1) he cut a few corners, or (2) fired and missed badly and published the work when it should have been scrapped, or (3) did not write it at all. It will no doubt impress some of the easily impressed, but I cannot recommend it after reading so much better from him.
Rating:
Summary: Stephen King is great as usual
Review: This is one of the easier Stephen King novels to understand. But that doesn't make a story any better or worse. Those who are now beginning to read Stephen King novels should read "Gerald's Game" first. This gives a broader understanding of his style, therefore making it easier to read his other novels. He has his unique twist with mystery and drama. One must love how the woman who's handcuffed to a bed has flashbacks about painful childhood trauma. The author chooses the best words to connect one another to create one smooth story. He proves on this book that he is the best mystery author today.
Rating:
Summary: A Surprising Game
Review: It was an old criticism of King's work, before "Gerald's Game" and "Dolores Claiborne" were published, that he couldn't write a convincing female character between the ages of 17 and 70. Given his penchant for writing about either young girls (Carrie White, for example, or the little girl Charlie from "Firestarter") or old women, it seemed to be a valid point for a long time. This book, which is an excellent one for many reasons, seemed to be King's first direct response to that criticism. In it, he proves once and for all that he can write a female lead character as compelling and believeable as any of his other characters, and can tell a fine yarn at the same time. The book starts out in surprising territory for King: a sexual game being played by Gerald Burlingame, who has just handcuffed his wife Jessie to the bed. This is not the first time this game has been played -- it's an old routine at this point, one which Jessie never particularly liked and has now grown quite bored with, to the point of frustration. She tells her husband that she doesn't want to do it this time, but he presses on. In the ensuing struggle, he has a heart attack and dies, leaving her handcuffed to the bed, in the middle of nowhere. That's when the story really starts. King's real strength in this story is not just in telling what happens to Jessie in her predicament, but King uses this device to tell the story of how she got there in the first place. What sort of woman is Jessie? What events led her to this place, this man, this scenario? In the course of the story, as Jessie struggles to free herself from her bonds, we also find out why she is there. Contrary to what some other reviewers have said, I found this book to be a page-turner. It kept me up very late finishing it, and once I was finished, I quite literally did not want to turn out the light. This does not happen to me often; in fact, this is the only King book that has had this effect on me. The effect is largely due to a very effective description, about halfway through the book, of something Jessie sees, or thinks she sees, in the corner of the darkened room in which she is trapped. The scene was so powerfully described that it bothered me for the next week, and inspired me to make a drawing called "Made of Moonlight," which was an attempt to exorcise the scene from my imagination. Even re-reading it now, I find that part absolutely chilling. It's one of the high points in the book, and one of King's most frightening moments in any of his work. Bear in mind, this is not a supernatural horror novel. Its only supernatural element is a slight tie-in with events in his other "eclipse" novel, "Dolores Claiborne." "Gerald's Game" is mainly a character study, with elements of horror interspersed to keep the reader engaged. The fear, however, comes from a place that is all too real and believeable, and it comes because King has crafted such a powerful story, and such a sympathetic lead character in Jessie Burlingame. In the end, "Gerald's Game" is not one of King's easier stories to read. It deals with some real issues, and its terrors are only too plausible. Unlike "The Shining" or "Cujo," it's difficult to put this book down at the end and convince oneself that the same thing couldn't happen to you. It's not a book about the scary monster that comes from under the bed. No, in the final analysis "Gerald's Game" is about the monsters who sleep in the bed with you, cleverly disguised, and about those monsters who were there to shape your past.
Rating:
Summary: More Tedious Than Terrifying
Review: While I won't dispute Stephen King's gifts as a writer, I don't always find his books to be the stay-up-all-night, can't-put-it-down reading experience so many of the jacket blurbs promise. I found "Gerald's Game" to be a downright dull, which is pretty astonishing given the book begins with a kinky sex game gone horribly awry. After her husband keels over dead just before some naughty fun, the novel's heroine, Jessie, is left handcuffed to the bed with no one around for miles to help. An intriguing premise. The problem is, not much happens beyond that, and certainly not enough to justify the novel's length. It's as if King was trying to meet a specific page count, and in stretching this 200-page story to 445 pages (paperback edition) he's smothered the novel's momentum. That's not to say "Gerald's Game" isn't without its stomach-churning moments, but expect to slog through a lot of extra padding to get to them. In the end, "Gerald's Game" is more likely to cure insomnia than cause it.
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