Before I read this book I had never read anything by Stephen King, although I have of course seen a lot of movies that have been based on his books. My godfather was kind enough to lend me a couple and this is the first. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a story of survival where a young girl called Trisha is tired of her mother and brother’s bickering and strays from the path while they’re hiking. She tries to be logical and find a way back to civilization but she somehow manages to get further and further away, and all she has for company are her walkman (it’s been a long time since I’ve referenced one of those) and hallucinations of her favorite baseball player, Tom Gordon.
But basically this story could be summed up as ‘a girl gets lost in the woods,’ and that’s pretty much what it is. I liked it, I thought the prose flowed nicely and it kept me engaged for the most part. Some bits were quite tense and I loved some of the ways King described the scenery, I thought he captured Trisha’s desperation perfectly. I also thought it seemed very authentic and it could easily have been a real-life account and I’m sure that part of the book’s appeal is that it is grounded and is a realistic scenario. There are a couple of problems I have though.
Firstly, I felt that Trisha seemed older than her stated age in the book. She seemed very mature and I kept thinking that she was around 14/15 and it was always a surprise when the story reminded me that she was nine. Secondly, and more importantly, when I say the story is about a girl lost in the woods that’s all it is. I don’t think it needed to be as long as it was because it did become a bit much towards the end, and although King managed to not make it too repetitive it did seem to drag on. I think it’s a testament to his talent that he was able to craft a good story where not much happened and the main character was on her own for the vast majority of the story. I like stories that leave me with something after I’ve finished reading them and that didn’t happen with this book. I felt that the tension dissipated towards the end and after I put it down the story didn’t linger with me and it didn’t affect me, so while I enjoyed it while I was reading it it’s something that I know I’ll never pick up again. I don’t regret reading it and I don’t think I wasted my time, but I do think it could have been streamlined. A lot.
