Synopsis

On a six-mile hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian Trail, nine-year-old Trisha McFarland quickly tires of the constant bickering between her older brother, Pete, and her recently divorced mother. But when she wanders off by herself and then tries to catch up by attempting a shortcut, she becomes lost in a wilderness maze full of peril and terror.

As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fears. For solace, she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio’s reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her – protecting her from an all-too-real enemy who has left a trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark woods…

My Review

As I do with all of King’s books, I went into this one blind. I had no expectations going into this, but it ended up not being what I was expecting. Make that make sense lol. Anyways this book basically follows 1 character. A 9-year-old little girl who gets lost in the woods. We are following her journey and how she copes with everything.

I listened to the audiobook of this one which was narrated by the late Anne Heche and I think she did a phenomenal job bringing this story to life and portraying the panic and fear that this character felt. I have to say for a 9-year-old Trisha was very resourceful. If I was the one lost in the woods let’s just say I wouldn’t have fared quite so well.

The only reason I’m giving it 4.5 stars instead of 5 is because I could have done without all of the baseball. Don’t get me wrong it fits in with the story but I’m not a sports fan so having to listen to a ball game that I didn’t understand took me out of the story a little bit.

King is hit or miss for me, but I tend to enjoy his shorter books more than his longer books and that was definitely the case with this book. I enjoyed it so much. I was kind of expecting it to end differently but I much prefer the ending we got. This is an ending that King got perfect in my opinion. While King isn’t a favorite author of mine, he is my most read author and he is one hell of a storyteller.

mistysbookspace