A Game Gone Horribly Wrong

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Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
I have read this book twice now. The first time was back in the 90s and then again in the last year. Even though there are not very many characters, the woman on the bed (Jessie) goes back in her mind to the past and events that happened during her life. It's a story of paranoia and also real fear. She's trapped in the cabin in the off season, husband unable to help her and the back door banging in the wind. Is her mind playing tricks on her? As time goes on and she tries to find a way to escape, the line between reality and fantasy starts to blur. Will she die there or be rescued? This was a good story for me.
 

danie

I am whatever you say I am.
Feb 26, 2008
9,760
60,662
60
Kentucky
LOVE Gerald's Game. I had read many of Stephen's books as a teenager, but in my late thirties, hadn't read any for a while.
I found this book and decided to give SK another go. After I finished it, I couldn't get enough! I'll always think of this book
as the one that led me back to him.
 

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
I was 99.99% sure she would make it out alive. I invested too much with her for her to just die in the end. Same thing with Paul Sheldon in Misery.
Yeah - I guess so - me, too. But when I was starting the thread I was trying to sort of explain it to someone who might never have heard of it (very unlikely on THIS board of course!).
 

EMTP513

Well-Known Member
Oct 31, 2012
503
1,923
I guess if you can get past being picky, and I COULDN'T, it's simply a good story. Everything about it beSIDES how she escaped was great.
But when you're a paramedic for a living, and see this stuff on a really regular basis, I find it difficult bordering on next-to-impossible to NOT notice that it wasn't possible to escape using that exact way to do it.
I'm also upset that I once tried to dabble in writing, and an editor told me that a reaLISTIC scene was UNreal but continues to believe all these scenes concocted by famous writers as "believable" when most of them aren't convincing to a real health care worker.
I hate being treated that way especially about the work I do every day. Just b/c said editor didn't undersSTAND how it was possible to have it happen DOESN'T mean it didn't occur.
But the good news is that I finally discovered why "truth is stranger than fiction." I wasn't ALLOWED to write the truth, even when it was the truth. I had to write something as true that was a big lie.
I refused to do it, quit writing and decided I'd take the paltry salary of a paramedic over trying to become anything in writing.
 

RichardX

Well-Known Member
Sep 26, 2006
1,737
4,434
I re-read this not long ago for the first time since it was released. I liked it much better than I remembered. The book has an ugly undertone on many levels much like Cujo. This was also during King's horrible male-hating period in which all men were drunks or abusers. One of the strangest things about the book was how unconcerned the wife is about the fact her husband has just died. It's almost like he got what he deserved. She is only concerned with her own situation. I didn't care too much for the crossover references to Dolores Claiborne which seemed pointless (I recall the books were going to be released together), but the scene with her father and the eclipse is the most effective in the book. Very creepy stuff.
 

Chuggs

Well-Known Member
Feb 6, 2012
3,777
6,426
Arkansas
But the main character almost goes crazy! (I tried this book on a re-read recently and I appreciated it more the second time around).
I didn't work for me. Its between this book and The Talisman for my least favorite Sai King books. I didn't hate it or anything, and I can certainly see why some really like it, it just didn't work for me. Some creepy stuff in it for sure though.
 

NightShifter

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2013
63
344
Mansfield, Massachusetts
I am really happy that
the "Space Cowboy" turned out to be an actual person instead of a figment in her imagination. The whole time she was questioning her sanity I kept thinking to myself, "The former Prince definitely was spooked by something, that must mean the Cowboy is real!" I do suspect that perhaps the Cowboy in backseat of Jessie's car toward the novel's end was momentary paranoia only because it would be extremely hard for him to sneak back there and then walk away from the crashed car without leaving any evidence.

Overall I really enjoyed the book. Although I can appreciate the "it was all in your head" ending, it has become tiresome and I find I enjoy when the monsters are real the most. The Space Cowoboy actually being a man named Raymond Andrew Joubert was even scarier to me than him being an inhuman monster - just the fact that a human being was responsible for his crimes. Yikes!
 

EMTP513

Well-Known Member
Oct 31, 2012
503
1,923
I didn't work for me. Its between this book and The Talisman for my least favorite Sai King books. I didn't hate it or anything, and I can certainly see why some really like it, it just didn't work for me. Some creepy stuff in it for sure though.
I think anyone who never had any of that stuff happen to them wouldn't like the book. I've had at least ONE of the things mentioned in that book happen to me and I didn't believe anyone would still be as normal as SHE was if it HAD happened to them but maybe I'm simply trying to justify why the thing that happened to me (and it WASN'T a relative that did it, 2 total strangers did) made me completely abnormal on the topic.
 

NightShifter

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2013
63
344
Mansfield, Massachusetts
I think anyone who never had any of that stuff happen to them wouldn't like the book. I've had at least ONE of the things mentioned in that book happen to me and I didn't believe anyone would still be as normal as SHE was if it HAD happened to them but maybe I'm simply trying to justify why the thing that happened to me (and it WASN'T a relative that did it, 2 total strangers did) made me completely abnormal on the topic.
I do think this was the most uncomfortable King book I've read so far because it took place in the real world. Even though this was a fictitious story, I knew the story of molestation was all too true for many people. I'm sorry to read your comment @EMTP513 - there are too many real monsters out there.
 
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SutterKane

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2014
297
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This book tends to be polarizing, at least in my own experience, I had a girlfriend once who wasn't a very big horror fan, who decided to read this book one day out of boredom and loved it, and on the other hand my mother was always a huge King fan and I think this might be the only book she disliked so much she didn't finish.

"Different strokes for different folks" as they say.

I always liked it, but I haven't read it in a while. I remember it having this sort of "Outlaw" vibe for me though, from the time I was young my family was pretty open minded about letting me read or watch whatever I wanted (more or less) but I remember being told specifically not to take this one off the shelf (I was around 11-12 at the time)...... so naturally I did. I would read it either when I was home by myself or people were asleep, and write down what page I was on on a scrap piece of paper to avoid bending a page, using a bookmark or leaving any other sign that I had touched it lol

Yet another I should put on my "Read again" list.
 
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