Rating: Summary: hmmmmm-full of angst! Review: I'm an avid reader-the nurses and I trade books in the emergency room-Bones,we all agreed, was a disappointment. Think it lacked a lot of that fury/hate/passion/love/scariness of the earlier novels. Misery,for example,is one of my favorites. That story-within-a-story thing that King did was incredible! The movie sucked, of course-no way the writing and one's imagination while reading can compare to a movie-which is what I tell my kids-course, they don't listen-ah well. Other thing-at work we often discuss this:after a writer gets on the bestseller list, no matter what is written subsequently,he gets back on that list -no matter how poor the novel is. Look at Anne Rice and that crappy novel about the violinist(I used to stay up all night reading her earlier works);Tom Clancy's recent epic and boring novel-should we mention Sidney Sheldon- whose first books were really good-how about the guy who wrote "Eye Of the Needle"? Anyway-"Bones" will not interest you until about page 300-if then.
Rating: Summary: Good Book! Review: I am a big Stephen King fan, this book was very good. Although I do agree the beginning was a little slow, however, the middle and the end definitely made up for it! Great book!
Rating: Summary: Intense! I couldn't put it down! Review: Mr. King, you never cease to amaze me. From the moment I opened the front cover until I finished 3 1/2 hours later, I was absolutely captivated. The images haunted my mind hours later as I tried to sleep. I've only owned this book for a month, and I've already read it twice!
Rating: Summary: Put simply - it's a great book. Review: Stephen King is my favorite author (surprise!) and without a doubt one of the best America has ever had. He possesses a rare talent to make you truly a part of the scene without getting too wordy most times. He also combines great narrating with real characters and even dry humor. He crams all of this into 530 pages of Bag of Bones, one of his best. The romance and horror blend perfectly. I especially love the "tap once for yes, twice for no" touch.
Rating: Summary: Ambitious, but ultimately disappointing. Review: I've been a fan for years and have always thought that King's enormous success prevented him from getting due credit as a good writer. I understood where King was going with Bag of Bones and I was willing to go with him for much of it. Unlike many other readers, I have enjoyed King's attempts to be more "emotional". He is obviously taking great pains with his female characters and it shows. He's also not afraid to deal with touchy subjects like racism, things that a popular-fiction writer never has to deal with as most popular-fiction readers could care less. The Green Mile is a wonderful example of what happens when he hits the mark. Bag of Bones is an example of what happens when he misses. I'm a black woman and so rightly or wrongly I notice characters who are like me! The Sarah Tredwell passages were empty. I have no idea what he was trying to say with this character. She was less than one dimensional and I have an uneasy feeling that the only reason for her existence is to include a very nasty rape scene which left me sick to my stomach. Especially when King implies that even though Sara was gang-raped, made to watch her young son being murdered and then is murdered herself, she was being unreasonable when her spirit wants to murder everybody it can get its hands on. Makes sense to me. When I finished this book I felt sick and angry. I had been enjoying the characters; I loved Kyra and Maddie, and Mike's grief and slow healing were very moving. But things took a very ugly turn and never got back on track. The black characters of Bag of Bones exist to provide some sort of moral symbolism. Racism, bad! Rape, bad! Forgiveness, good! Frankly, I wish Mr. King had left us out of it and stuck to what could have been a very good book.
Rating: Summary: Another disappointing potboiler Review: King seems to have become bereft of the narrative talent that made IT and SALEM'S LOT horror classics. The protagonist in BONES is a writer who keeps a discard file of literary duds that he submits to his publisher at intervals to fulfill contractual obligations. Could this be an autobiographical novel? I expected more from King's return to his Maine roots and was greatly disappointed. A pedestrian effort at best. Certainly not classic Stephen King.
Rating: Summary: Not my favorite King work Review: I'm a longtime fan of the Bard from Bangor, and I was prepared to label this novel among the worst I had ever read from Master King up until the last hundred or so pages. Up until then, it displays a lot of typical King elements to the point of excess: the slow and steady build-up, the psychic child in trouble, gradual revelation of hidden relationships, something dark in the past coming home to roost. Anyway, the custody battle stuff runs too long, the dialogue is laughably awful, and the admittedly effective climax didn't really need the slow as molasses build-up that it gets here. Still, there are enough little chills here and there to give late night readers sustained heebie-jeebies, and the overall story concept is pretty interesting (once you've figured it out). However, a lot of that revelation comes in bizarre, total immersion visions, which doesn't quite jibe with the generally realistic tone of the novel (like it or not, the romantic subplot does capture a lot of complex emotions in deft, effective language). A more disciplined middle 300 pages would have made for a tighter, tauter story. A mixed bag of bones, overall.
Rating: Summary: Great Book, couldn't put it down... Review: Bag of Bones was definitely a "page turning, couldn't put it down" book for me. I read the book very quickly, because I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I would recommend it to anyone who loves Stephen King.
Rating: Summary: Back to Maine... Review: King and Maine don't always equal a masterpiece; Insomnia was horrible, and on the other hand The Shining is one of his best. But this time, after the pitiful creeping of his last few novels, he really seems inspired by his old home region. Bag of Bones is full of King's Maine mythology, familiar names and references to other books. Also it seeks to create much the same atmosphere as The Dark Half or maybe even IT. This book doesn't have much of an idea, the ancient secrets do not seem so impressing the tenth time around, but it is surely well-crafted, interesting and quick to read. The characters appealed to me, I felt moved by their fortunes and misfortunes. Maybe this is more personal book than King himself would like to admit. After all, one of the main themes is the loss of creativity any writer can experience. I could, of course, complain about the ending; it was kind of dull and tired, it didn't blow anything up. But after 500+ pages of great entertainment I felt rather happy after all. King can still write. There's nothing of Desperation's or Insomnia's childish babbling here. Bag of Bones is not a King classic, not in any way comparable with IT or Salem's Lot, but I can easily rank it among the better achievements of his long career.
Rating: Summary: Alot of wasted pages Review: I am a long time fan of Mr. King. When he's good, he's very, very good but every now and then he comes up with a stinker. In this long, boring story, he brings up the practice of authors penning books in advance - to publish when needed. I believe this is one of those. Don't waste your money on this turkey.
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