Anne's Reviews > Firestarter
Firestarter
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by
Anne's review
bookshelves: horror, paranormal-schmaranormal, thriller-suspense, read-in-2010, buddy-read, kindle-app, read-in-2014
Feb 05, 2009
bookshelves: horror, paranormal-schmaranormal, thriller-suspense, read-in-2010, buddy-read, kindle-app, read-in-2014
Come on, baby, light my fire.
I don't think the scariest thing about this book is the fact that this tiny kid has the power to potentially crack the Earth in half.
Don't get me wrong...the thought of that curls my toes.
The genius of this book is that your fear builds with the father's fear.
And it's not the fear of simply being captured. He fears what all of this is doing to his daughter, and he fears what he has had to do to his daughter in order to keep her safe from herself.
The part that really got to me was when he had to hold up her charred teddy bear to her when she was a toddler and tell her that she was very bad for doing this to Teddy. You could almost smell his guilt and desperation just coming off the pages.
He didn't want to yell at his little girl, but he had to make her afraid and ashamed of what had happened. Otherwise, the next time she got angry and threw a tantrum it might not just be a stuffed animal that went up in flames.
If you've ever been in extreme circumstances like that with your child then I think it will gut-punch you to read that.
The creation of The Shop was an especially nice touch by King.
It's (I believe) everyone's secret fear that there's some unknown government agency out there that doesn't have to conform to The Rules.
The scientists and field agents were also chilling in that they were just doing their job without much thought to the moral ramifications.
And Rainbird?
Dear God, that guy was a whole new level of creepy!
Partially, because he really did love Charlie in his own sick way.
He sees Charlie for who she is and what she can become, and he's proud of her. He felt that she was his, and he was willing to patiently wait for her to trust him.
And as disgusting as he was, for the most part, he was dead-on in his assessment of her.
Honestly, that was the scariest thing about Rainbird. You want to believe that if someone is psychotic and amoral, then they're also missing the things that would allow them to correctly read other people. In Rainbird's case, his lack of conscience just let him see through the bullshit and get to the core of the individual.
He was truly a chilling character.
You know going into it that not everyone is getting out of this alive but for a King novel...
I thought it had a pretty happy ending.
I don't think the scariest thing about this book is the fact that this tiny kid has the power to potentially crack the Earth in half.
Don't get me wrong...the thought of that curls my toes.
The genius of this book is that your fear builds with the father's fear.
And it's not the fear of simply being captured. He fears what all of this is doing to his daughter, and he fears what he has had to do to his daughter in order to keep her safe from herself.
The part that really got to me was when he had to hold up her charred teddy bear to her when she was a toddler and tell her that she was very bad for doing this to Teddy. You could almost smell his guilt and desperation just coming off the pages.
He didn't want to yell at his little girl, but he had to make her afraid and ashamed of what had happened. Otherwise, the next time she got angry and threw a tantrum it might not just be a stuffed animal that went up in flames.
If you've ever been in extreme circumstances like that with your child then I think it will gut-punch you to read that.
The creation of The Shop was an especially nice touch by King.
It's (I believe) everyone's secret fear that there's some unknown government agency out there that doesn't have to conform to The Rules.
The scientists and field agents were also chilling in that they were just doing their job without much thought to the moral ramifications.
And Rainbird?
Dear God, that guy was a whole new level of creepy!
Partially, because he really did love Charlie in his own sick way.
He sees Charlie for who she is and what she can become, and he's proud of her. He felt that she was his, and he was willing to patiently wait for her to trust him.
And as disgusting as he was, for the most part, he was dead-on in his assessment of her.
Honestly, that was the scariest thing about Rainbird. You want to believe that if someone is psychotic and amoral, then they're also missing the things that would allow them to correctly read other people. In Rainbird's case, his lack of conscience just let him see through the bullshit and get to the core of the individual.
He was truly a chilling character.
You know going into it that not everyone is getting out of this alive but for a King novel...
I thought it had a pretty happy ending.
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Carrie
I don't think I read King for a long time for that reason. Or am I thinking of a different book?
27 December, 12014 H.E.
I haven't read King in years and I'm not sure why I just leapt off the train and never looked back? I do remember reading The Tommyknockers and thinking what the ... ? The great thing about a writer like King is that he has just written so much stuff...there's practically something for everyone in his library by now.
That was Gerald's Game.
If angst could burn, I would have set the world on fire as a teen! LOL! Oh, wait! Forgot I can't use that one anymore...GSOPM!
Dear God! I missed that book entirely! I probably never would have recovered from the trauma! Ha!
It sucks being a grown up some days.
Oh! See, I just looked that up. It was published in 1992, so the one time I ventured back in after The Tommyknockers, look what I got! Yikes! No wonder I blocked it out. :)
Yes, indeed. Some days are so tough it really takes it all out of you :(
.....
Where'd she go?
Well, I'm freaked out, and yet intrigued. What's the handcuff scene!?
You see! You all are making me relive this! WAAAAAAAA!
You know, now that I am analyzing this from afar, what exactly is the message that King is sending here? In It all the teens have to have sex to defeat the evil clown, but in Gerald's Game, the wife gets pretty badly punished for trying to spice things up a little with her husband on a getaway. What gives?
You forgot to mention how the whole hand in handcuff escape got slowly dragged out in very gory, graphic detail. The moral of the story is that you must use velcro straps when playing such games.
It's probably real! Ha!
It's probably real! Ha!"
Wouldn't doubt if there's truth to it!!!!! Yikes!