Rating:  Summary: Exceptional work... Review: Books don't keep my attention unless I can read the first 20 pages or so and can visualize everything described in the text: characters, their voices, their motions, scenery, etc. This book had me seeing everything from the start; how Jessie and Gerald looked, how the cabin looked (and feeled).. everything in this book from start to start to finish was going through my eyes as though it were being projected on a movie screen. The last quarter of the book takes the story in a very different direction than the first 75 percent, but is still mesmerizing to read. The last quarter of the last quarter, however (if that makes sense), veers off in a totally different direction than the rest of the book, which is neither good nor bad, it's just a bit of a twist. Anyway, I loved this book, and if you love Stephen King and/or psycological suspense, you'll love this book. Trust Me.
Rating:  Summary: A simple game that just got out of hand. Review: Gerald and Jessie Burlingame take a little time off from their hectic lifestyles to visit their lakeside property in Dark Score, Maine. Gerald had an idea for a little fun, he brought handcuffs along with him to attach Jessie to the bedposts. Harmless enough, until Gerald has a fatal heart attack with Jessie still in cuffs. Now, she has to struggle countless hours to no avail. With hunger setting in and thirst scratching at her throat, she has to find some way to escape from the cuffs. Gerald's game is one of the top Stephen King books I've ever read. It deals with the struggles to stay alive while at the same time, goes back into the past to explore Jessie Burlingame's haunting childhood that never seems to leave her alone. She begins to see things in the middle of the night. The question is, are they really there, or are they her imagination?
Rating:  Summary: Better than I expected Review: Gerald's game is not typical Stephen King . . . at least not what I am used to reading from Mr. King. The book's main character is a woman named Jessie, who finds herself in quite a predicament after a rather unfortunate event involving her husband. I liked Jessie's character, although I must admit it took me some time to identify with her situation. The book dives into the deep waters of child sexual abuse and the damage it can cause. Jessie is constantly facing her "day when the sun went out." I found myself turning pages quickly at times to find out what was going to happen next, but slowly at other times just trudging along to finish a chapter. The final 50-70 pages were the most difficult for me to read simply because I had grown tired of the story. I wanted to finish the book and I wanted to see how everything turned out for Jessie, but it seemed to drag along too long. I love King's work, and I"m not usually one to suggest he cut down on anything. This time he should have created a short story instead of the entire novel. I can't suggest NOT reading a King book, but this isn't one I would read first.
Rating:  Summary: This book was another one of Stephen King's horrifying tales Review: Gerald's Game takes place in the fall season in the month of October. Jesse and Gerald Burlingame are alone in the bedroom of their Maine summer house. They are playing a game but not a game people play every day. When Jesse hears the sound of the second lock of the handcuff, she realizes she is not the one in control anymore and does not like this. Jesse panics as her husband is looming over her and her next move is violent and deadly. Jesse is handcuffed to the bed for the next 28 hours and comes face to face with all the things she has feared as the back door of their summer home is swinging open letting her horrors in. Gerald's Game is written by Stephen King. Stephen King is able to provide the reader in suspense and horror. Students my age can relate to this because all kids have fears that they have to face at one time or another, whether it is by them selves or with a group of their friends. The audience reading this book enjoys it because it puts you on the edge of their seats, but at the same time they can't put it down. This book is easy to understand and it will give you a good scare.
Rating:  Summary: Fighting for life Review: Having a husband who enjoys playing freaky sex games may one day leave you stuck in an akward situation. You could be waiting for death. With only the slightest chance for survival. In the book geralds game, by Stephen King an inocent girl gets stuck in the very same situation. In the middle of nowhere lived a couple,whos names where Geraid and Jessie. They enjoyed living in present day exept for the fact that nobody could here you scream. One day, they were playing a harmless game in which Jessie was hand cuffed to the bed. She thought this was a decent idea. until her husband died of a heart attack and Jessie was left there with nobody to help her. This suspenseful novel kept me wanting more. The biggest thrill was wheather she lived or died at the end. I suggest this book to those who enjoy writing that can not be determined what happens next.
Rating:  Summary: A creepy, macabre novel of terror... Review: How would you like to be handcuffed to your bed, in a house in the middle of nowhere, with the front door left open for the wild beasts (and monsters) to enter, and your husband lying dead at the side of the bed...
Well, that's the predicament Jessie has found herself in. She didn't mean to kill her husband, she really didn't, but now he's dead, and she's stuck. But she's not alone. She's being watched...by man and beast...or something worse...
Stephen King's "Gerald's Game" is a thrilling glimpse at what a person will do in moments of utter desperation. Not necessarily a supernatural thriller (though it leaves you wondering), "Gerald's Game" is a great example of psychological suspense, written by the master of horror. Loosely tied with "Dolores Claiborne" (no, you don't have to read it to get this one), it is one of King's strangest--and yet most engrossing--novels to date.
Rating:  Summary: one of his best Review: I finally took this book off the shelf this summer after owning it since it was first published, and I literally couldn't put it down. It makes you feel that you are there, that this incredibly horrible experience is happening to you. When a couple spends a day at their summer home in Maine and decide to have some bondage sex, a freak accident occurs which leaves the wife handcuffed to the bedposts in nothing but panties with a dead husband on the floor. The screendoor bangs regularly, she hears a dog barking and the distant sound of a chainsaw. But, she knows nightfall is on its way, and by the way, she is haunted inside her head by various voices which try to advise her, and nearly succeed in driving her over the edge. The suspense is breathtaking. The inner story that plays in her head is of the summer of the solar eclipse in 1963, the day her father did a very bad thing to her, hence the voices ever since. But she is a survivor. Good ending too. Also, there is a vague connection to King's "Dolores Claiborne. This is a terrifying book for a woman alone.
Rating:  Summary: Disappointing. I was let down. Review: I have read about fourteen of Mr. Kings books and frankly I am stunned how dull this book, after years of nerve-racking stories turns out to be. It seems interminable and I read on in the hope that it would turn out to be a bit more entertaining . It seems to me to be merely a mélange of several of his previous novels; look at the following comparisons for example:Misery - bound to a wheelchair/bed; The Library Policeman - repressed memories of childhood sexual assault; Cujo- the dog formerly known as Prince; Dolores Claireborne- eclipse; Polly's gloves for her arthritis - Jessie's glove for her cuts. And didn't someone in 'The Stand' (Dana, I think), try to kill herself by thrusting her neck through a window pane, just as Jessie was contemplating doing after running out of the group session ? If there are any more similarities between this and previous King novels, then I "disremember" them. One sure way of an any artist's (imminent) demise is a repetition of their previous works. In the late Agatha Christie's mystery/murder novels, never once did I detect a resemblance to any previous publication. This is not Steven the King. This is a fable by Steven the Princeling.
Rating:  Summary: Vivid Review: In Gerald's Game Stephen King paints a vivid picture of a married woman's bedroom games gone horribly wrong. Now, still handcuffed to the bed and her husband dead on the floor while the keys to the cuffs are across the room...what can she do to escape? What won't she do?
Terrorized by her past memories as much as her current reality- this woman is in for the most frightening experience of her life- if she can survive. And like any King book, anything CAN happen WILL happen to prevent that. As suspenseful as climbing a flight of stairs when you don't know what's at the landing above to push you back down, this novel has your heart racing. It only took me 2 days to complete, I was that engrossed.
This is now near the top of my favorite King's book list!
Rating:  Summary: A Surprising Game Review: It was an old criticism of King's work, before "Gerald's Game" and "Dolores Claiborne" were published, that he couldn't write a convincing female character between the ages of 17 and 70. Given his penchant for writing about either young girls (Carrie White, for example, or the little girl Charlie from "Firestarter") or old women, it seemed to be a valid point for a long time.This book, which is an excellent one for many reasons, seemed to be King's first direct response to that criticism. In it, he proves once and for all that he can write a female lead character as compelling and believeable as any of his other characters, and can tell a fine yarn at the same time. The book starts out in surprising territory for King: a sexual game being played by Gerald Burlingame, who has just handcuffed his wife Jessie to the bed. This is not the first time this game has been played -- it's an old routine at this point, one which Jessie never particularly liked and has now grown quite bored with, to the point of frustration. She tells her husband that she doesn't want to do it this time, but he presses on. In the ensuing struggle, he has a heart attack and dies, leaving her handcuffed to the bed, in the middle of nowhere. That's when the story really starts. King's real strength in this story is not just in telling what happens to Jessie in her predicament, but King uses this device to tell the story of how she got there in the first place. What sort of woman is Jessie? What events led her to this place, this man, this scenario? In the course of the story, as Jessie struggles to free herself from her bonds, we also find out why she is there. Contrary to what some other reviewers have said, I found this book to be a page-turner. It kept me up very late finishing it, and once I was finished, I quite literally did not want to turn out the light. This does not happen to me often; in fact, this is the only King book that has had this effect on me. The effect is largely due to a very effective description, about halfway through the book, of something Jessie sees, or thinks she sees, in the corner of the darkened room in which she is trapped. The scene was so powerfully described that it bothered me for the next week, and inspired me to make a drawing called "Made of Moonlight," which was an attempt to exorcise the scene from my imagination. Even re-reading it now, I find that part absolutely chilling. It's one of the high points in the book, and one of King's most frightening moments in any of his work. Bear in mind, this is not a supernatural horror novel. Its only supernatural element is a slight tie-in with events in his other "eclipse" novel, "Dolores Claiborne." "Gerald's Game" is mainly a character study, with elements of horror interspersed to keep the reader engaged. The fear, however, comes from a place that is all too real and believeable, and it comes because King has crafted such a powerful story, and such a sympathetic lead character in Jessie Burlingame. In the end, "Gerald's Game" is not one of King's easier stories to read. It deals with some real issues, and its terrors are only too plausible. Unlike "The Shining" or "Cujo," it's difficult to put this book down at the end and convince oneself that the same thing couldn't happen to you. It's not a book about the scary monster that comes from under the bed. No, in the final analysis "Gerald's Game" is about the monsters who sleep in the bed with you, cleverly disguised, and about those monsters who were there to shape your past.
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