The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

I won’t hide the fact that I love Stephen King. But this is by far one of my favorite of his books. I have read this one five times and carry it with me if I am not in the middle of another book just so I can spend some time with Trisha. If you haven't read Stephen King before, this is a good place to start. Scary, but you (probably) won't be up all night unable to sleep, not the case with some of his other books to be discussed later.

Little Trisha McFarland who is 9 but big for her age is going through a lot of stuff. Trisha’s parents are divorced and her brother Pete is hitting that stupid teen phase that dictates you can’t like much of anything, especially your family and he tends to suck all of their parent’s attention and energy.

While Trisha and her brother are out on one of Quilla’s ‘outings’ she leaves the trail to escape the never ending conflict between Quilla and Pete. Being lost in the woods is probably one of the scariest things that could happen to anyone and reading about a lost 9 year old was slightly disturbing but not only is she big for her age, she is pretty mature (possibly attributable to being a product of divorce but also what else do you expect when you have an adult male writing from the perspective of a little girl).

I did let my boys read this book. The oldest (14 at the time) did seem to enjoy it, especially the slightly off color humor. Youngest (12 at the time) was a little less than impressed, sorry Steve, he is just finding his reading niche and it is focused in the fantasy genre right now.