Rating: 
Summary: It doesn't get much better than this.
Review: I don't even know where to begin. Just when I was ready to give up on King (thinking he'd lost "it"), he turns out this masterpiece. A page turner...couldn't put it down....will keep you up all night....these phrases don't begin to describe this book. By the way it is just as good the second time...and the third time...and...well you get the picture. Mike Noonan is an incredible character and his story is gripping beyond words. You can almost feel his sorrow, almost hear the love in his "voice" when he talks of his dead wife. Whether you are looking for an incredible (and yes tradgic) love story or a wonderful classic ghost story this is the book for you. I can't recommend it enough.
Rating: 
Summary: One to steer well clear of
Review: Let me begin by saying that I found the title for this book to be quite an apt one because it fit the story to the letter. A bag of bones, no flesh, skin, muscle, blood, heart, or anything, just a bag of bones. One of the very worst books I ever forced myself to finish.How to describe this book. A love story without any real love, a horror story without any scares, a mystery story you don't care about solving. I feel that I'm leaving more out, but the book just did not impress me enough to continue on in this vein anymore. I know that King can write, because there are other books he's written that I've enjoyed, but this dismal failure is not one of them. Maybe if he had trimmed about 400 pages from this one, something could have been saved. It's biggest and greatest mistake is its length, where it continues to run on and on, telling you absolutely nothing, and continuing to do so for maybe fifty or more pages at a time. I think the greatest mystery to me is how this novel ever got published. If I turned in a book like this, I'm sure it would come right back to me, but then again, my name isn't Stephen King. There's truth in the statement that a name can sell a book, I'm only glad I borrowed this one, and didn't buy it myself. If I had, it would have found it's way into the trash can long ago. One more word of advice. This book is populated with some of the sorriest excuses for characters I have read about in the longest time. The only truly interesting one in the book is killed off, that in my opinion, states the greatest tragedy of this novel. The main character, the hero I guess you could call him, is probably the character I cared the least about. He's more of a caricature than a character. If you want to read a good King book, pick up The Green Mile, and skip this one. Trust me, you'll be far happier that way.
Rating: 
Summary: A change from King's normal venue.
Review: As a rule, I'm not a big King fan. I don't care for horror books. However, following all the publicity about this book, I picked it up hoping for something different, and it was. Personally, I enjoyed this book to the fullest. It had a touch of romance, a lot of paranormal, and at times made my heart race by being scary without being gross and gory. Whether or not you believe in it, this book brings into question the possible presence of spirits and the incredible perceptions that sometimes children have that adults don't (or choose not to). It was long, and I did think a couple of times that King probably could have shortened it a litte bit, but I'm glad I took the time to read it. I enjoyed it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This was a great book. It involves a man, distraught over the loss of his wife, who goes back to place they spent most of their life. Only thing that he doesn't realize was that he was drawn there by forces that he can't see. The goes into how he overcomes these forces while he tries to protect a single mother and her daughter from harm. Stephen King is a great writer and he doesn't let you down with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Started scary but,..........
Review: The first part of this story was, I'm embarassed to admit, scary in one of those looking over the shoulder after every page ways....but the potential for this book is not exploited to its fullest though. King sort of strays at times to involve the other characters that aren't nearly as entertaining as the mysterious Sara Laughs in which is a character all in itself. I personally would've loved to see more ghostly encounters with the apparition that is haunting Mike Noonan. All in all, Stephen King does his usual good job of scaring and involving the reader in his tales of horror and mystery. If you like Stephen King, you will like this book
Rating:
Summary: Sara Laughs
Review: Good name for a place and a review. This book is different. Mr. King is going more for "literature" and less for scares although they are there. They are more subtle. I enjoyed this book very much. The characters are strong and well drawn, I felt really sad when Kyra's Ma was killed, I felt it "wasn't fair" for both of them - both have had such difficult lives. I like the triumph and the coming to terms at the conclusion of the story. I find this book has a lot to recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: You'll Lose Sleep Over This One!
Review: Excellent read - starts slowly but soon takes off! I couldn't put it down - I had to keep reading 'till the wee hours of the night. The screams & bumps in the night will send chills up your spine! I've never felt the same about 'fridge magnets ever since - and sometimes I'm sure they HAVE moved on their own! King does a great job with plot, character development and adds lots of twists & turns. As usual his ending is weaker than the rest of the book deserves - but it's still worth the wait.
Rating: 
Summary: High Skim Factor
Review: I do not mean to short-change King in this review. The man is a master of horror and always will be regarded so. Deservedly. In fact, there are some effective passages, and the raised-hair-on-the-neck experience does occur a few times. But ultimately, King has completely overwritten this book. We are all used to long King books. Often they are great reads. But even in his best long books there are passages of soft and sagging, self-involved, ruminative prose that we begin skimming. The problem with this book is that the soft parts are much greater in proportion to the terse scary parts than in any previous book of King's I have read. Therefore the skim factor is much greater as well. On a scale of one to five, five being high-amplitude skimming (the pages fly by like those old calendar sheets in thirties movies) and one being slight skimming (never more than half-a-dozen sentences at a time), this book has a skim factor of 4. King fans obviously love this book, but to the casual reader who may have read one or two King books like "Misery" and "The Shining" (or none, if that's possible) and wants to see if this is something they want to try, they may be disappointed. Long isn't necessarily bad, but long and meandering can be. EKW
Rating:
Summary: Not My Cup Of Tea
Review: My third attempt to finish the novel has failed. I like Stephen King a lot for his character building, his scene-settings, his descriptions of characters' emotions and. above all, his prose writing. But what I have never managed to like is a horror story. Okay, a lot of people out there like horror fanatsies, that's why he is the best selling author of the modern times, but to me, SK will always be identified with The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption. I would love to read more stories like them from Stephen King.
Rating:
Summary: OK King
Review: After reading "The Green Mile," I was ready to believe again that Stephen King can do no wrong, but this overly long, dour novel reminds me of why I went a decade between King books. As the quote from the NY Times review aptly notes, King can't make up his mind if this is serious fiction or horror. Or maybe he just can't quite get the two styles to mesh the way he has in the past. There are some good bits here, but the mystery of Mike Noonan's summer home is never quite brought into focus and the tension of the custody battle over poor Kyra Devore gets swallowed up by the horror story. I think Mr. King would have been better off just writing horror or just leaving horror behind this time. Still, there are worse ways to spend a summer's day than reading this.
| 
