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Summary: One of King's best
Review: "Bag of Bones" is unlike any Stephen King book I have ever read. This book has very little of the gory horror that dominates most of his other books. The story is about an author who loses his wife and develops writers block. Four years after his wife's death he goes to their lake cabin and discovers he is not alone. Things are occurring that can't or won't be explained by the locals and the author decides he is going to get to the bottom of it. But there are forces at work that will do everything to stop him. All in all this is a great love story with a little of the supernatural and horror element thrown in. (Wouldn't be a King book without it.) This book is right up there with "The Stand" and "It" as classics by King.
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Summary: My First Stephen King Book, Not a Good Start
Review: This book was a "non-scary," slow read, that lacked pizzazz - basically it was a snore.It appeared that Stephen King just sat down and started writing without a story in mind. About half way through the book, he developed a lackluster plot. Towards the end he wrapped things up in such a jumbled, unthoughtful manner that he required a 5 page summary to explain. Ack. If you want to read this book, do yourself a favor. Read the first 25 pages and then skip to the 5 page summary. Then, go out and buy one of his more popular books instead. ;-)
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Summary: Ghosts are scary as long as they're invisible
Review: There is a passage in "Bag of Bones" where the protagonist is reading a fairy tale to a three year old girl and she asks him to hurry up. He replies that stories "with magic in them" can't be hastened. It is hard not to hear Stephen King himself speaking to his readers through his alter ego Mike Noonan. Because at this point of the book, that's what we, like the child sitting on the story teller's lap, would like to say: "Cut to the chase!" In a way, King/Noonan is right: suspense demands patience, and isn't built in a couple of pages. However, it is hard to finish "Bag of Bones" without the impression that the book could be trimmed into a better one. This was my first King novel (no, I haven't been living the last 20 years in a little hut by Lake Baikal). I am not sorry for trying it, on the contrary: I love ghost stories and I couldn't put this one down until the last page. There are memorable moments (the arrival at Sara Laughs; Noonan's time-travel dreams) and real pathos (his portrayal of a widower's long bereavement; Kyra's innocent helplessness). As for the ghosts, they are scary as long as they are invisible, and I think that King was excessively parsimonious in his invisible manifestations. At the end, I must confess that some apparitions were almost ludicrous (specially the possessed tree), and much of the fright was lost. My general impression about the climax was that King wrote it with a movie adaptation in mind. Anyway the ending was satisfactorily tied up, which some say is not a SK trademark. Overall I recommend it, in particular if you like ghost stories. But I expected to get more scared from a SK novel. Friends have suggested "Pet Sematary" and I'll give it a try.
Rating: 
Summary: Bag Of Bones
Review: Another book based in the same town Stpehen king usually bases his stories. A man's wife dies from a brain tumor. She is pregnant. He is a famous writer and gets writer's block. He's lucky though b/c he has saved up 4 stories, so he has four years to have his writeers block. He moves back to he and his wife's lake house, Sara Laughs. This house is haunted. The man falls in love with a younger woman and her daughter. The woman is being terrorized by her dead husbands father. Mattie and the man fall in love and Mattie wins the custody of hre child, basically b/c Max, her dead's husbands father dies...This book was good, but The Green mile was a lot better. It was an interesing plot and I enjoyed the book, but younhave to think he kind of stuck on himself when he's writing about a novelist...
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Summary: I Had Trouble Sleeping
Review: I just finished the book today. There were times I couldn't put it down and other times I couldn't pick it up because it scared me. I thought I started to hear ghosts like the ones King skillfully imaged in this story. He not only scared me but took me to places and times I have never been and I could practically smell the air. There was more to this story then the usual fright and horror of small town living that hooked me to King's works. It was deeper in the relationships of the charaters and I liked that. I liked the book.
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Summary: Start of a new King.
Review: WOW!!!! This book is to good to be true. I have always been a King fan, but this is the first novel of his I have finished in only three days...that suprised me even more than the ending to this book did. I could not put this book down unless I had to, I can't explain it. This novel is paving King's new road into the darkness. The writing in this is very mature, it fits into the Kingian style of writing but also branches out into a world many King fans never experienced in his work. If you have never read a King novel...what are you waiting on. Get this book.
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Summary: First King Novel I've Read...
Review: and I loved it! Since reading this and "The Shining" I am now a constant reader. King's character development is superb and, despite his reputation as a horror novelist, he is a superior wordsmith. I'm only sorry that there are so many people out there who cannot appreciate him.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: This was, a a good book I liked it it's interesting funny and, alittle scary this is good read it!
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Summary: A horror novel, a literary achievement, a great doorstop.
Review: Bag of Bones is huge. Huge physically -- you could kill somebody with the hardcover version. Thematically -- love, death, reality, fiction, history, all the biggies. It even has a huge storyline, covering a couple of hundred years and several parallel lives and deaths. I think King went a little nuts with this one, but if you can get in the groove it's a great read. Like "Insomnia," it takes a long time for the plot to cohere; strange things happen but we don't know what's going on. Stick through the first 175 pages or so, though, and you're in for a heck of a ride. Basically, it's the story of a writer trying to overcome writer's block after his wife's death. He's living in the summer house they bought together, and slowly realizes it's haunted -- by his wife, or by someones and somethings else, or both. By the time he gets to the bottom of things, he'll have done some ethereal time-traveling, dug up some very old ghosts indeed, and some major characters will be dead. So why four stars instead of five? Two reasons: this book is King at his most bleak since Pet Sematary, and the climax dances on the knife-edge of silliness. But if you've got the patience, this is a fine, rewarding read. And lifting it is good exercise.
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Summary: King - The Best, No Bones About It
Review: A huge fan of King, I was getting a little tired of his seemingly-out-of-nowhere endings in some of his earlier books (almost like he didn't know how they should have ended), but the gripping "haunted love story" Bag of Bones got me back. The story of Mike Noonan, Kyra ("Ki"), Mattie, Max Devore, Jo, and Sara Tidwell (Sara Laughs) kept me enthralled every night. The quiet Dark Score Lake's ghosts were a thing of beauty, and the history of the all-too-familiar "black vs. white" racial tension fit securely in place. Max Devore, although out of sight most of the time, was one of King's best villians, but Devore's assistant, "the white nana," stole the show. King's storytelling has never been disputed, but it's never been more revealed than in this story. Refrigerator magnets have voices of their own, and even bushes and trees seem to come alive at Sara Laughs. Manuscripts talk in their own way, and Kyra's psychic connection with Mike is so innocent that it's scary. The finale ties everything we've learned about the town and characters together in a nice little bundle, and the Epilogue clearly responds to any additional questions readers may have about the spooky incidents haunting the old-town TR. King has done it again.
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