This is the first Stephen King book I have ever read. I have been reading James Patterson books, but once I read all of those I turned to King. I tried to read his Dreamcatcher after seeing the movie but I just couldn’t get into it.

I really enjoyed The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon though. The book in length was not as long as most of King’s books that I have seen on the shelf. But given the story line I don’t think he could have gone anymore with it.

The main character is Trisha McFarland who is 9. You find out that she is a typical nine year old who has a best friend and still thinks a lot of her parents, but is also old enough to criticize them sometimes too. Her parents are divorced. She has an older brother, Pete, who is a typical teenager, complain, complain, complain. He is obviously upset about the divorce and lets his mother know about it ALL. Trisha seems very old for her age. She is able to think of things to help her along her way. She is a very happy child considering her mother being a sort of control freak and her dad being an alcoholic and her brother complaining about everything all the time.

The story puts you on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. Trisha’s mother insists that every weekend she take her kids out and do some sort of activity other than staying home and watching the television or playing video games, which is what Pete wants to do. They have their bags packed for a hike and they begin their journey. Immediately Pete and Trisha’s mother start to argue. Trisha, in her own little world, just marched behind them enjoying the nature. Trisha then has to use the bathroom, she tries getting her mother’s attention and fails, so she decides to go into the woods alone and find a good place to ‘refresh’ herself. In the process of finding a place to use the bathroom, Trisha looses the trail. She’s lost. She tries to go toward where she last heard voices and she gets further away. Somewhere in her head she remembers a book she once read that said to follow a stream of some sort and it will lead you to people. She finds such a stream and starts walking.

Trisha somehow manages to get REALLY lost. This I find sort of hard to believe. That you can just walk a few feet into the woods, use the bathroom and then not remember which way you came in from the trail. I know she is nine, but she seemed smarter than that. Also the fact she kept walking, right way or not, I thought children’s parents taught them to stay put when they got lost; it’s easier to find them that way!

Trisha goes on following her stream, conserving the little lunch she had packed for herself that day, and realizes she has her Walkman with her and begins to listen to the Red Sox play. Her favorite player is Tom Gordon, the Sox’s closer. I do like how King used the names of real players: Tom Gordon, Andy Pettitte, etc. This Walkman is her only form of communication to the outside world.

Trisha goes through a lot while being lost in the woods. She falls down a hill and gets beat up by rocks, then gets chased by wasps that sting her a lot. She ends up using mud to sooth her stings. She runs out of food and uses some advice from her mother that she remembered to eat checkerberries and beechnuts. She drinks water from the stream and gets really sick. She also caught a fish with the hood of her poncho. Not likely, but interesting. She eats the fish whole after letting it die. Through her whole journey she somehow winds up in New Hampshire. That’s a lot of walking!

Her imagination is amazing. She dreams of crazy things. Tom Gordon is walking with her throughout most of her walks. She imagines him giving her advice about getting out of situations in the woods. She imagines three monk looking people coming to her. She also turns a bear from the woods into an evil beast monster that is hunting her all in her head.

By the end of the story, Trisha has no food left, she’s very dirty, very, very sick, and still has Tom Gordon by her side. She is still hoping for someone to rescue her. Somehow the people searching for her think she was actually kidnapped instead of lost in the woods. They find the man they think kidnapped her and then figure out he really didn’t. Kind of dumb. But Trisha finally finds a dirt road with the help of her imaginary friend Tom Gordon, and walks down the road to find help. She hears a car backfire (really a gun). She walks toward the sound and ends up on another road. Then the bear comes. This part is really crazy and not believable at all. The bear finds her, gets right in her face and becomes scared of her when she pretends she is pitching and tries to hit him with her dead Walkman. A man sees all this and shoots the bear with his gun and the bear runs off. The man saves Trisha. See, not believable.

Overall the book, I thought, was pretty good. I mean I read the whole thing. Usually if I get bored with a book I won’t finish it. Like I said I think King just ran out of ideas for Trisha and the woods and that’s why it is so short. King’s descriptions of things in the woods really male you feel like you were there. His depiction of Trisha’s imagination for a nine year old was great too. It showed that kids really do listen to their parents whether they think they are or not. It also told the reader that Trisha really does love her parents and her friends and brother because of how often she referred to them. The book I think is more of something that the hardcore Stephen King readers would get, but I think it is also a good starter for his books. Gives you a starting point, because as I have heard, King’s other books are really good, so it can only get better I’m sure.


Recommended: Yes