Bag of Bones

""At night your thoughts have an unpleasant way of slipping their collars and running free."<br/><br/>I read Bag of Bones with a group of reviewer friends, and I really struggled to get through this one. It starts off well enough. King does a good job at writing grief, and it's easy to feel for Mike in the beginning. It was slow-going, but it still held my interest. <br/><br/>Things started going downhill for me when Mattie came in. I feel like there was way too much effort putting into making the reader care about a one-dimensional character, and it just didn't work for me. There's one scene with Mattie in it, and then pages and pages of background about her to immediately follow up. <br/><br/>I may just be in a bad mood about it because I read another King book with a solid love story earlier this year. This one was just flat insta-love, and I had little to no interest in their story. <br/><br/>I know that this book was published in 1998, but it's hard to look past the ****** interactions with women in this novel. I don't think it would have frustrated me as much if Mike would have been written as a villain, but he's supposed to be the protagonist. He claims to care about Mattie, but always imagines her as not being poor. He constantly mentions her poverty, and makes jokes about her clothes & trailer. It was ridiculous. <br/><br/>**CW RAPE** <br/>**POSSIBLE SPOILER** <br/><br/>A woman in this book is raped, and is made into a villain for having a desire for revenge. This was ****** up by itself, but she's also the only black woman in this book, so there's no representation. The old white guy saves everyone from the sexually abused angry black woman. This is infuriating, and people deserve better. I haven't seen things like this in any of King's recent books, but I hope he doesn't write this ******** anymore. I already didn't care for the book, and then that flat-out ruined it for me. The repetitive racist language was also annoying - we got it the first time. <br/><br/>A couple other things about this book & then I'll stop. If you're interested in the small-town custody battle aspect of this book, pick up Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng instead. That book is intriguing & has a lot of heart. I cannot say the same for Bag of Bones. <br/><br/>I know that King can write interesting ghost stories, and this was not one of them. It just didn't have that creep factor. If you aren't afraid of magnetic letters being moved around on a fridge, don't look here for a horror novel. <br/><br/>I have more notes, but I'm just done talking about this book."

"All time favorite king book"

"One of my favorite all time reads. I've read it 3 or 4 times and will again and again. Gripping story and give-you-chills haunts. King is a master and this is hands down one of the best. "

"I couldn't wait to finish this because it scared me so badly."

"Very nice "

"My current favorite is Stephen King's new one, Fairy Tale. It is awesome!"

"it's a good book, just really slow "

"I can’t really think of a single favorite, but I love true stories. I write romances. "

"Wow. OK, so this took me so long to read because big changes are coming in my life. This book was pretty amazing. From my perspective, it felt like a long Supernatural episode, without Sam and Dean. I still loved it. <br/><br/>There was a lot of mystery with this book. It was very interesting. Mr. King being the very descriptive writer that he is, really helped paint the picture for you (as he always does) and I never really felt lost. The end was quite graphic, with rape involved. <br/><br/>I have seen the mini series, and I thought it was pretty well done, but I'll take the book instead."

"Still. The ghost stories are very interesting. The overall experience this narrator takes us on, in some of the really subjective language, is all very interesting. To listen to, at least. Having tried a few other SK, I think maybe I'll try a few more, and it's always interesting to see how studios dump hid ideas into CGI machines. Thanks, SK, for opening the doors to so many authors I think are a little more interesting to hear from. You're an inspiration and a legend, fer sher"