The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (A Review)
I may have gotten the meaning behind the title more if I had understood the baseball reference, but alas, I don’t know anything about many sports so I assumed it was going to be some strange child murder book (considering the rampant theme of child murder in every other book I’ve read of King’s), so I can gladly say I was relieved when it turned out to be a much more innocent, girl looks upto her idol type of thing. The short blurb focused around this girl being lost in the woods, so I instantly expected a very heavy supernatural/life altering experience theme considering most, if not all of King’s books deal with the horrific supernatural. While the supernatural did make an appearance, albeit in a fever type dream, I have to say I was disappointed with this book on a whole, but more on that later.
Initially the book appeared as a child’s nightmare of having to live in a home divided by grief, shouting and an upset mother while not being able to see the father she loves often. It seemed to be a child’s emotional journey through a divorce, something that happens almost everyday I bet, so I couldn’t really grasp at this point where the story was going. Until said child wandered from the path and magically got herself lost in the forest. Initially I thought maybe the child had just taken a wrong turn aiming to get back to the path, but rethinking it as I was writing, it occurred to me that this small girl was wise beyond her years, so taking a wrong turn doesn’t seem a likely thing to happen. This could be a supernatural element of something not wanting her to leave the woods, which adds another level of depth to the story, but I’ll go into that more in a moment. The main focus as this girl is lost seems to be the Walkman she uses to listen to the radio, specifically the baseball games involving her idol. They appear to help preserve her sanity for a little longer and as she says, this radio is her only link to the rest of the world, at least for now.
This book started out very slow, with half of the pages consisting of nothing but this lost girl wandering through the woods, following an old bit of information she heard saying that following the river would lead her out, at this point it basically just lead her far out of the search area but that’s not that important. The real element of fear doesn’t appear until halfway through the book, which is impressive for a book that’s just over 200 pages long! As much as this new player suddenly appeared, they didn’t seem to have much influence until the child ‘encounter this lost god’, I use the word encounters loosely, because at this point it could have been the child’s fever dream from dehydration, hunger and stress. But if this god was real, this ties back to what I said earlier, it adds a whole new level of fear because it could suggest that for some reason, this god wanted this child to wind up lost, and eventually dead, in these woods. For what purpose? I cannot say as I am unsure, but if I were to hazard a guess I’d say the lost god wanted her for nothing more than entertainment. If you thrive on the suffering, despair and eventual death of lost souls, then what could be more fun that a player who knows what they are doing and poses some sort of challenge?
Right at the end, the girl appears to fight this lost god in one last hurrah, and defeats it by throwing her Walkman exactly as her idol Tom Gordon, would throw his last all-or-nothing pitch. Added to the fact the Walkman turns into a baseball in this girl’s eyes and it’s either the supernatural has come to aid her, or she’s finally lost her mind. As it is stated by the man that found her on the edge of the woods, he saw her fight a bear and the bear to run away, wounded. While I don’t doubt a Walkman could do some damage, I doubt it could do that much, so the supernatural aiding the girl’s strength could be possible, but on the other hand it could be the strength you gain to fight when you know death is close at hand. Basically the book ends with the girl performing Tom Gordon’s signature point upto the sky move while she lays near dead in a hospital bed, and that’s it, it just says game over after that. As a gamer myself I can only conclude that this girl died of her injuries and the stress her body had been put through. However, each chapter in this book is named according to the progression of stages (couldn’t think of a better word there) in a baseball match, where game over just means the match is done, won or lost, and that it’s time to move onto the next one. So she could have lived to tell the tale possibly. I believe considering she had double pneumonia by the time they found her, it’s more than likely that after she fell asleep, she just didn’t wake up again.
Moving away from the plot now, the writing style used was simplistic and easy to follow. I thought the multiple references to baseball both in the chapter names, the appearance of Tom Gordon (fever dream I believe) and the eventual last fight against the bear were all well suited and well placed. While I possibly could have understood more of the references if I knew anything about baseball, I don’t think my lack of understanding impaired my ability to read and follow the story in any way. This book did not include very few accounts of P.O.V switching, which made it less mentally taxing to keep up with the story, compared to other works like IT where it takes a mental marathon to keep track of what year you’re currently in. It was also interesting to follow this child’s dilemma through the mind of the child themselves, to see and understand how they see things; that would have been my conclusion, but it almost seemed like you were following an adult most of the time, which subtracted from any insight into what a child would do. But this did fit with the theme that she is older in soul than in body, so I guess I can’t really complain.
Honestly, I found it very difficult to engage with this book, the story did not seem very gripping, especially when you’ve been reading other works by the same author where every chapter ends in a shocking cliffhanger. I only really continued to read out of my own stubbornness, as I don’t like to put books down halfway through, but I had complimented this a couple of times. But stubbornness won out and here I am, writing this review nearly a month later as it took so long to figure out where to start. I haven’t written a negative review before and wanted to take the time to figure out how to approach it. I suppose, on the plus side, that if you are a stubborn reader like myself and you do just so happen to pick up this book, then at least it isn’t a 1000 page long monster like IT, so you don’t have to suffer long.
As previously mentioned, there was a lot about this book that I didn’t like, but as I came to write this review, I realised that there could be more behind this simple story, maybe more involvement from the supernatural than I first realised. I believe the gripping parts of this story come not from the book itself, but from the discussions you can have surrounding what actually happened and why did it happen. Overall though, I wouldn’t read this again, and honestly, even thinking more into the story itself doesn’t make me feel any better about the time I spent reading the book in the first place.
Okay, I would rate this book at around a 4/10 mark, this is because despite the thinking, despite the unanswered questions, this book did not leave a good taste in my mouth, nor did it leave me with any sort of positive emotion when I had finished the book. However, I believe the redemption lies in the writing itself, it is consistent, easy to follow, makes for a quick and not confusing read and does stay true to it’s baseball heart so for that I have to give some credit.
Now for the final question, would I recommend this book to someone else? No, I wouldn’t, unless you have a strong urge to get into a debate with someone else who has read the book about their views then I would give this book a wide miss. There are many other King books that I believe are better, and to be honest, compared to the others, this book does seem like the odd one out almost. But if anyone has read this book before and wants to discuss it then let me know, I always love a good chat!
Bye for now ^-^ (oh and the next book in the backlog of things to write about is the more recent King book, The Outsider, which should be out tomorrow evening if I remember)
