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Summary: A fantastic read for King fans or first timers
Review: I usually read Mr. Kings work for the mystery they entail and I was not dissapointed in this work. I have always encouraged Mr. Kings exploration of fiction and his attempt at a love story is absolutley lovely. The only reason I give this novel a four star rating is that some parts are a bit abstract for some readers who may be reading Mr. King for the first time. Long time readers like myself shouldn't have a problem with his abstractness (remeber Jack's battle with Uncle Mort in the Talisman?) Looking at Bag of Bones, I see it as an attempt to gain readers who consider Mr. King a horror writer and nothing but. I will not say that this story does not have a horror element, but the paranormal element in this story is essential. I hate to ruin any part of the book, but I especially enjoyed his brief explanation of the "outsider" which is directly from H.P. Lovecraft. Bag of Bones shows that Mr. King is truly a writer in that he is not constricted to one style or genre like other writers of the late 20th century.
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Summary: This was a good book
Review: I recommend this one. It is one of the good ones.
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Summary: They call it Sara Laughs...but no one's laughing now.
Review: When Mike Noonan's wife, Jo, dies suddenly, he is forced to see that she led a secret life. Noonan is a bestselling author, and has never suffered from writer's block, but a year after Jo's death, he cannot right. The talent has left him, and in its place are the revelations he has had about his wife.The dreams start four years after Jo's death. In them, Mike is back at his summer house, Sara Laughs. He is paralyzed, unable to move and he recognizes this as a symbol of his writer's block. But suddenly, after several reaccurences of the dream, he CAN move. And when he does, he sees a frightening figure that hurtles him awake...and leaves him wondering: Was that Jo? What was she trying to tell me? Or was it someone else? To answer these questions, Mike must pack up and head to teh cabin, hoping to find answers to both his questions of his late wife, and those concerning his sudden fear of writing. But once in the cabin he discovers that the answers may come with a steep and terrible price...a price paid in life and death. Even as the nightmares start again, even as he comes to realize Sara Laughs is haunted (by whom, he does not know), Mike is thrown into a custody battle between poor, young, widowed Mattie Devore, and her rich, old, evil father-in-law, Max Devore. The subject of their disagreements: Kyra, three-year old girl Mike rescues purely by chance. He is drawn to both the girl and Mattie, and quickly falls in love with both. But Devore is scheming to get Mattie into his own custody...and will stop at nothing to do so. This is a rich and complex book. I will be openly honest: this is my number-one favorite book I've ever read...and I've read A LOT. Here's a short, true story: I sat down for close to an hour and just read, never once looking up from the pages. After an hour passed, I stopped reading...and suddenly I was Michael Noonan, I was seeing what he saw, I was feeling what he felt, and I expected at any moment to see the ghostly figure that haunts his nightmares. That had never happened to me before or since. Stephen King is the master of horror, but he brings something else to this novel: compassion. Mike, Mattie, Kyra, and even Max Devore are all-too-real characters, and you will both love them and hate them. Buy "Bag of Bones"; it's bound to become a classic.
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Summary: another great thriller by king
Review: Most people, when hearing of a Stephen King novel, would probably think of your typical blood and gore, slasher kind of novel, but Bag of Bones has much more to it. It still has all the sepernatural events and murders and all the things you are used to with Stephen King, but it is also in a way very beautiful love story. Starting from the beginning, the book just pulls you in. It might take a little while to get into some major action but you never get bored with it. The characters are very well developed and you feel as if you know the protagonist, Mike Noonan, very well. The antagonist of the story is an evil, old, filthy rich man by the name of Max Devore. Basically he is trying to take custody of his granddaughter away from his daughter-in-law, Mattie. This story is full of ghosts and hauntings that take place on the T-R. Mike Noonan's summer, called Sara Laughs, is named after the woman who now haunts the place. I would recommend this book to anyone that loves getting into a good ghost story full of suprises, but also someone who likes to get caught up in a very interesting love story.
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Summary: Bag of Bones: Critical Review
Review: Bag of Bones, is a tale of grief and lost love's enduring bonds, of haunting secrets of the past, and of an innocent child caught in a terrible crossfire. Thirty nine years old novelist, Mike, suffers a severe case of writer's block after the sudden death of his wife, Jo. All through out four years, he is plagued by vivid nightmares and visitations of his old summer home, Sara Laughs. In an effort to confront his wife's death, he revisits the house he and Jo kept. There, he falls for Mattie and Kyra Devore, a young widow and her toddler daughter. While trying to help them from Max Devore, Mattie's multi-millionaire father in law determined to gain custody of Kyra, he struggles with his own matter. Instead of finding peace at his summer home, the ghost of his dead wife and the ghost of Sara Tidwell start to emerge. Now Mike is left trying to figure out the mysteries of the Dark Score Lake, facing spirits who want to enact vengeance over a violent act from the past. Stephen King, the author and narrator, present Bag of Bones as a romance and a haunted love story. The book displays an intense amount of strengths and weaknesses. Several advantages the book creates are the unstoppable story line followed by a strong ending. The book is incredible in that it begins as a grief stricken romance and ends with a typical scary ending. Although the novel can be a bit confusing, it leaves readers with interestingly unsettle thoughts and questions. However, at some sections throughout the book, it does show a bit of overly excessive use of adult language and tiny fragments of sexual content that readers should be aware of. A weakness within the book is the new plots being presented constantly, leaving Kings to tie up too many dangling plot threads. One of the best feature in this book is the never ending story line. King adds more and more to satisfy his readers. However, when adding more and more plots into the story it appears the story will never come to an ending. The mysteries of Sara Tidwell were revealed by in the last fifty pages which added more plot, and finally the climax was rushed. The child custody sub-plot was not satisfactorily resolved. All this left a predictable ending: the ghost confrontations The story consists of two climaxes. In the second climax, ghosts are confronted twice. I believe the ending might have been more satisfying if King saved all the supernatural evils in a final confrontation. At times Kings explains far too much of the plot. It takes the reader's interests out of the book and forced to read further pages until being pulled back in again. This was likely because his writing does contain many pointless expositions. Bag of Bones starts out as a haunting love story of grief and lost love. King has set up contrasting types of love, both honest and corrupt. The love between Mike and Jo, Mattie and Lance, and eventually Mike and Mattie are all contrasted against Max Devore and his obsession to gain custody of Sara. The novel shows that even pure love is at times comes under suspicion. Mike learns hat Jo had been sneaking away to Sara Laughs without telling him, making his further suspicions of her having an affair. The novel later focuses on the actions of revenge and murder. He slowly moves into an unreal world where spooky events and shadowy spirits, both good and evil emerge. Kings first lays the novel out into a love story, and then wraps it up with a typical scary ending. Several parts of the book kept me wondering and confused as I kept reading. Almost at the ending of the story, I have felt a variety of sympathy for Mattie and Kyra, and for Jo and Mike. But I felt truly sorry for what happened to Sara and the little boy. The story leaves her to be a victim again the second time. It could have possibly been a satisfying ending if Mike had save the ghost of Sara Tidwell as well. Another confusing concept was the author using his opening pages to express his ideas about the publishing industry. It seemed as if his main character was easily used to let readers know which authors he likes and dislikes. In his text, "I was never a Clancy Ludlum, or Grisham......Ironically, one of the books that kept me from going higher was Steel Machine, by Thad Beaumont .....I don't crave the fame, either....and I don't fall asleep dreaming of book club sales." This I particularly did not like about the book. Stephen Kings' writing can perhaps be labeled as a bit too violent. It consists of an intensive use of harsh adult language that is not necessary throughout his writing. A description of sexual content was displayed. In some cases, there was explicit references to deaths and of violence and gore. There were accounts of torture and death. Stephen King wrote this book as a haunted love story with grief and sorrow. Bag of Bones is many things: a chilling ghost story, an intricate thriller, a mystery and a novel filled with suspense. It portrays the search for identity and truth and setting things right for others. I believe this book is spectacular due to many of it's strength and weaknesses. Most people define the novel as: "Stephen King's most ambitious novel..."-- Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and "A thoroughly compelling thriller." -- Esquire. It is definitely a fiction open to all readers. However I wouldn't recommend it to those who want to go into action in the beginning of the book. This is a book better suited for patient readers
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Summary: Bag of Bones
Review: Bag of Bones is a haunting love story. It features love, loss and ghosts. The plot of the book is a great hook. One man's loss turns into a life threatening journey that deals with great forces of evil and falling in love all over again. There is a mystery behind Mike's wives death and he is determined to find out what happened that lead her away from him and got her in trouble. On the way to their house up in the mountains of Maine, Mike has an encounter with a three-year-old girl named Kyra. He then, meets her mother and with time, falls in love with her. In between all this, Mattie, Kyra's mother, is fighting for custody over her daughter. Max Deavore, her grandfather and a multimillionaire, is trying to take Kyra away from Mattie because of her poor house conditions. As Mike, Mattie and Kyra get closer, he decides to help Mattie get custody of Kyra. Mike, a best-selling author, hires the best lawyers to get on the case. As the weeks pass, they become almost family and the house, Sara Laughs, turns out to be haunted by the dead spirit of Sara Tidwell, a black singer from decades before. Mike struggles to fight the ghosts and at the same time develops a telepathic power to communicate with Kyra. They win the case and Mattie gets Kyra under her custody. By that point, Mike and Mattie have fallen in love and on the night when they are supposed to be together, Max Deavore sends some of his men and they shoot and kill Mattie. Kyra stays with Mike for the days that follow Matties death because my now, she thinks of him as her father. One night, Mike wakes up from the feeling that something is wrong. He goes outside and is faced with the life form of Sara Tidwell's ghost. They fight until the point where Mike has no more strength left. Sara finishes her "unfinished business" and leaves. After all this is over, Mike files a suit for the custody of Kyra so that they could become a real family. This book had a lot of strengths. It kept me in suspense all the way until the very end. The hooks of the story, for example the ghosts, kept me up until midnight not wanting to put this book down. There are a lot of unexpected surprises such as Mattie's death and the death of Max Deavore. I don't think that there are any weaknesses in this book because it always kept me thinking and analyzing the characters. Also, the character description was very good and the way that the character feelings where described was amazing. Throughout the whole book, it was nonstop thrills and surprises, which is a great quality in a book. I would recommend this book to everyone grades nine and higher because it has some content that, I think, junior high students probably should not read. Also, there is sexual content and a lot of adult language. Other than that, it was great and I recommend it to anyone that wants to read a good book.
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Summary: Long but entertaining
Review: My second stephen king's book, and i think he is a very good horror story writer... however this book is very long and it tends to be a bit draggy in the beginning, with all those mourning etc. The character is built up through all those personal dialogue, and all the other characters do get enough description. I liked this book quite a lot but i would not recommend it to those who want to go into action right in the beginning of the book. This is for patient readers!
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Summary: Awesome
Review: I have been a Stephen King fan for two decades and I have read most of his novels. I am biased when it comes to his stuff because I generally like it all. I read Bag of Bones with no intention of liking it. I read the back cover and I wasn't too impressed with the short summation of what the story was about. "a haunted love story" seemed ridiculous to me. I soon realized that I was wrong. This book grabs you at the beginning and doesn't let go. It is one of those stories where you generally like the main character and you wish you could meet someone like Mike Noonan in real life. The evil characters are EVIL and the supernatural stuff is chilling and totally entertaining. I read somebody elses negative review of this story and they didn't like it because it had too much supernatural stuff in it. My only answer to them is "this is a stephen king novel, if you don't like spooky, supernatural stuff you're not going to like stephen king! Get a clue..." I convinced my wife to read this book. She stated that she "wasn't a stephen king fan" but she read the book because I kept bugging her. She loved it. She has since read "The Stand" and "Insomnia" and has become a devout stephen king fan. In summary, this book is great. It has some parts that will make a chill run up your back. There are parts that inspire a warm fuzzy (the romance and family value stuff) and there are parts that are funny. I highly recommend this book!
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Summary: A Bag of Bones...and So Much More
Review: Bag of Bones By: Stephen King While many authors strive to gain the reader's attention, there are few who can do it right away, and keep the reader enthralled by the story line entirely of the book. Stephen King plans every step of the story, and it all intertwines in the end with a final showdown between good and evil forces. The main character of the book, Mike Noonan, struggled to cope with the death of his wife, Jo. Mike was distraught in finding out that he lost his life mate at such a young age - only at 36. When his wife died his wife, Mike lost his writing ability and was unable to produce any current writing - current the operative word. When Mike was younger he had written extra books, but hadn't gotten them published. So he made his publishing company believe that he was still writing books by publishing the old ones. He was never able to write again after Jo's death. Mike decides to go back to the TR, where he and Jo would often go for vacation before she died. Once Mike goes back, he starts to be haunted by apparitions of all sorts - a crying child, screaming women, moving refrigerator magnets, and visions of the dead. The house, called Sara Laughs, has a secret that few know. Arriving at the TR, he almost runs over a small child, named Kyra, who wandered in the middle of the road. He stops in time and takes the child - only three years old - to the side of the road out of harm's way. When Mike first talks to Kyra, he finds her adorable. When Mike finally meets Kyra's mother, Mattie, he finds that the phrase like mother like daughter is true. The book involves an intertwined relationship among Mattie, Mike, and Kyra. Mattie's situation involves her grandfather Max Devore - who's 85 - trying to get custody over Kyra. The custody turns out to be a battle, not only between Mattie and her grandfather, but between good and evil. The ending of the book involves Mike losing more loved ones, but who is lost you have to find out for yourself. I highly recommend this book to all readers, but the level of difficulty is slightly above average, and it does contain some very mature themes, none the less, the book will teach the reader a great deal about life and respecting it. I read this book for English class because it dealt with the theme of survival, and that is definitely what took place during the novel. Though there was more to be desired in the epilogue, the book was very well written and interesting to the end. I give this book a 5 out of 5 stars. BY: James Gould Grade 10
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Summary: engrossing
Review: This is the first Stephen King novel I've read and I found it engrossing and I honestly didn't figure out the ending b/c he zigged when I zagged, slippery devil :D I love how he got me involved with the main character by simply letting the guy live his life for a good chunk of the book. My mom hates this about King's writing but I find I like it. Great story--it made me a King reader right out of the chute.
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