Rating: 
Summary: Boy's Life
Review: My all-time favorite book is "To Kill a Mockingbird"; but now, "Boy's Life" is running a VERY close second. It's a wonderful story, and makes me wish I had lived in that time and place. I found myself reading more and more slowly as I came closer to the end of the book, because I didn't want it to end. I have never read a story where I was sobbing one minute and laughing aloud the next.
Everyone should read this book; no exceptions.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite A Life!
Review: Sheer acclaim brought me to "Boy's Life." One book lover friend after another praised it to the skies. Finally, I had to see for myself what all the talk was about. I had previously read "Swan Song" and while impressed, did not think it measured up to Stephen King's "The Stand." I had also heard McCammon became disheartened at being typecast as a "horror" writer and all the comparisons to King. I approached the book with a cautious but open mind.Cory Mackenson, almost 12, lives an almost idyllic childhood in backwater Zephyr, Alabama. The time is 1964, but has the feel of the late 30's or early '40's. He is the only child of an anxious mother and a thoughtful father who is a milkman for the local dairy. While riding the route with Dad, a car goes into the lake. His dad dives in for an attempted rescue and discovers the victim is most cruelly murdered with his wrists trussed with baling wire. The sensitive father is severely traumatized by the incident and the lack of closure. The victim is a John Doe, and no one seems much interested in solving the case. This is the incident that forms the base of the book. What follows are a series of almost stand-alone vignettes of Cory's adventures, all with more than a whiff of the fantastical magical. The strongest, I felt was Cory praying his mortally injured dog to live and the chilling result. Cory and his pals are excellently done; just about exactly what I would imagine would be high good times and conversation among twelve-year old boys. Cory is a highly likeable protagonist: polite, unusually devoted to his family, very like and highly intuitive toward his father's thoughts and depression. Cory thinks of his hometown and his boyhood as an enchanted time, and he evokes that sense for the reader. I was disappointed in the trite denouement of the mystery. Heck, we used to make up better endings than that when we played cops and robbers! But there were so many satisfying little endings; I forgave the lackluster big one. "Boy's Life" is an entertaining read, particularly for boys of all ages if the young ones can relate to a boy who was sans computer, cell, video games and the mall!
-sweetmolly-Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: A wonderous read and very entertaining.
Review: This is the 2nd book that I've read by Mr. McCammon, and it just goes to show some people were born to write books. This is just a wonderful ride in a boy's life and the events that take place in a small community in Alabama. Definately worth picking up. Highly entertaining and definately something that's worth a re-read.
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING!!!
Review: I have never read a book that made me cry so hard or love so much. I cant believe that such bueaty could exist in pages of a book, or that it hasnt been destroyed by a hollywood movie yet. Buy this book the instant you see it, after you do you wont be able to let go.... Amazing...
Rating:
Summary: "Moving"
Review: "Boy's Life" by Robert McCammon, is a moving tale...one that I found very appealing. The plot skillfully written, the characters well-developed, and the dialogue easy to relate to. Stories such as this one will be around for a very long time. For those who haven't read this book yet owe it to themselves to do so...it is that good! John Savoy
Savoy International
Motion Pictures Inc.
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Summary: Magical, pure magic...do u believe in magic?
Review: McCammon has crafted a great story about youth and innocence lost. "Stand By Me" is the definitive novel on this subject and McCammon comes as close to that novel as possible. This story is about a boy in small-town Alabama and what happens when he goes with his dad on his milk route one day. He watches as his father jumps in after a car crashing into the lake and he watches as his dad comes out of the lake.
His dad is a different man. The lake or dead body in the car stripped his father of any innocence he had left. His father is haunted by this and this young boy encounters other things over this magical summer; a boy with a lisp who throws a 90 mile an hour fastball, a vodoo queen, an alligator that is part myth, part real. This book changed the way I look at childhood and is a book I want my 3-year old to read one day. It is on par with King's "Stand By Me" and is successful despite any genre. Further proof McCammon isn't just a horror writer and I do hope he makes his rumored "comeback." Please, Mr McCammon? Pretty please with sugar on top?
Rating:
Summary: An underappreciated American classic
Review: I'm not sure what prompted me to pick up _Boy's Life_ many years ago. I certainly hadn't been impressed by McCammon's horror fiction, which--of what I had read--mostly seemed to be third-tier echoes of Stephen King. But I was not just pleasantly surprised--I was stunned at what an outstanding work _Boy's Life_ is. Indeed, I fully believe that if McCammon had never published _Stinger_ and _Wolf's Hour_ and _The Swan_ and the rest of his horror novels, _Boy's Life_ would have been trumpted as a great work of American Literature. But modern critics can't endure someone pedestrian enough (as they see it) to write for money, so _Boy's Life_ has never gotten the critical recognition it deserves. Which is truly a pity, because _Boy's Life_ is one of the finest American novels of the 20th Century and a worthy successor to _Tom Sawyer_/_Huckleberry Finn_. It puts to shame similar modern works, such as Stephen King's _IT_ and Dan Simmons's _Summer of Night_. It is a book that one lives and lingers in, pushing ahead to see what happens and yet never wanting the story to end. Simmons may never write another novel like it--but he's already done more than the vast majority of published authors, living and dead. ..bruce..
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Summary: Rediscover The Magic
Review: Robert McCammon's Boys's Life is a book that has a hundred different subplots, dozens of characters and enough story to keep you occupied for a very long time. It would have been easy for this book to get lost somehwere in the writing process. So many things happen and so many things are discussed. And yet, the reader never feels overwhelmed while reading this book. Instead, I found myself wanting more and more, totally captivated by the beauty, originality and magic of the story. Cory is twelve years old and he is about to live through a year that he will forever remember. It all begins when, while helping his father out on his milk run, they find a dead body in a car that plunges into the bottom of a lake. Soon after that, strange things begin happening in the small town of Zephyr, and most of them are centered around Cory and his family and group of friends. The novel is written in short episodes. Each new chapter is a new episode. It reminded me of those old cliffhanger movies. A chapter would end, marking the end of one adventure, just before a new one would begin. But of course, all these different storyline are linked by the major plotline; the one centered around that man who is sleeping dead at the bottom of the lake. Amazingly enough, by the end, everything ties up together and you realize that McCammon was thinking of the whole all the while, that everything you went through during those 600 pages was necessary and very much needed. McCammon has created a wonderful coming-of-age tale that is not really horror, not really fantasy and not really pure drama. It crosses many genres, and that's exactly why this book is so magical. Like Stephen King's It or The Body, or like Dan Simmons's Sumemer Of Night, Boy's Life is a coming-of-age tale about a young boy who is standing on the threshhold of manhood. And during the year of his twelfth year, Cory will see and experience many things that will leave him changed forever. And like Cory, the reader comes out of this book changed. It's one book you just don't want to see end. I felt sad when I turned the last page, and the temptation to just start the book anew was very much present in me. Do yourself a favor and read Boy's Life. I promise that you will not be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: through a childs eyes
Review: This book was the epitomy of life from a childs eyes, with just the right amount of mystery to make it more than just a tail of boyhood. It was my introduction to McCammon and i never looked back he has a way of making characters live and become your friend.
Rating:
Summary: Spend some time with this boy.
Review: At nearly 600 pages "A Boy's Life" is not a novel you will be finishing in an evening. Nor will you want to, there is so much here to savour, smile at and remember. My husband assures me that for a 12 year old boy growing up in the 60's his first love really would be his bike, his ticket to freedom and the world around him. How fitting then that Cory's beloved bike plays such an integral role in the story. This novel reminds us of that innocent time at the end of childhood, before our eyes and minds are sullied with so many of the harsher realities of life. A boy, his buddies, his bike and a big mystery, what a ride!
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