The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Written by Stephen King
About 260 pages (mass market paper back ed.)
Originally published in 1999
Rate: 5/5
This is the first book I have read where a girl goes out into the wilderness and has to learn how to fend for herself. It was incredible to read about because it felt so realistic, and yet very mystical. This was a very digestible read compared to Stephen King's other works I have read so far.
I can count on one hand the number of times I have watched a baseball game. Yet, I wasn't lost reading this book (lol poor choice of words, sorry Trisha). From what I researched, Tom Gordon is a legit baseball player, here he is...
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| Tom Gordon |
What is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon about?
Trisha, her older brother, whose name is Pete, and their mom go out on a hike for fun. Trisha's parents had recently gotten a divorce at this point. Despite Trisha enjoying time with her mom, she's ultimately a daddy's girl. Trisha loves everything her dad loves, including baseball and especially Tom Gordon.
During their hike, Trisha has to go pee. Pete and their mom continue arguing about the difficulties the divorce has caused pertaining to his social life. The two of them continue on, while Trisha wonders off into the woods trying to find a spot to pee. She ends up getting lost because she looses sight of the trail. The rest of the story focuses on her journey into the woods.
My thoughts on The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
I really appreciated the fact that this was a little girl instead of a little boy because I haven't been able to find as many good books involving girls/women attempting to survive in the wilderness. Reading this perspective was very interesting because it felt non-traditional and a bit more relatable.
I read this book in less than two days because it was so compelling. There's really only one setting throughout the whole book so it makes the events easier to focus on; however, I could see how this could bore some people. I really enjoyed focusing on Trisha's the actions and feelings.
The ending was also very brilliant. The whole time Trisha is navigating herself through the woods, she's also navigating her thoughts on God. Which I find interesting, it seems like some people in our society only call to God in times of crisis. Even in fictious stories most of the time those who pray get help, through God or luck or something else, we will never know. Something I find interesting is the fact that, when we pray we sometimes pray to a foreigner's God/ a God we didn't originally believe in, but heard about from someone else. Just some food for thought. It doesn't make the ending of this book any less impactful, I really loved it.
This is a bit of a spoiler: I read up on what the "monster" in the story was and an article said it was a wendigo, which is cool and interesting. But I thought the monster was "it" (as in Pennywise the shapeshifter) and I got goosebumps reading the parts when the monster showed up. I thought the story was somehow going to connected with Insomnia and It in that way, but I guess it didn't?
Links
https://stephenking.com/Amazon: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
There's an article written about Tom Gordon's thoughts on being in the book: New York Times Article