The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

“The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.”

I've been laid up with a cough for the past few weeks. Frustratingly, it seems to be getting worse instead of better. In an effort to rest and let my throat heal, I tucked myself into bed today and started in on The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. I was hoping to read for a bit before drifting off into a restorative (hopefully) sleep, but alas, it was not to be. The darn cough refused to let me rest. Luckily, however, this book had me totally absorbed, and I spent a lazy half of a day reading the whole thing.

The novel follows nine-year-old Trisha McFarland, who embarks on a short hiking trip on a segment of the Appalachian Trail with her mother and brother at the beginning of the story. Frustrated with the constant bickering between her mother and brother, she leaves the trail to use the bathroom and gets hopelessly lost trying to make her way back. Unable to retrace her steps back to her family, she unwittingly moves deeper and deeper into the woods. Soon, she has wandered so far away from where she started that the rescue teams eventually tasked with finding her aren't searching anywhere near where she has gotten to. Trisha has to rely on her own common sense and ingenuity to make her way back to civilization.

Her journey is far from easy. All she has with her are the meager contents of her backpack - a bagged lunch, a bottle of soda, a bottle of water, a poncho, and her Walkman cassette player/radio (it's the 90s). To ease her mind as she travels, she tunes into Boston Red Sox games, hoping to catch mentions of her favorite player, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. When the broadcasts of the games begin to fade, she starts to hallucinate that she is traveling with Tom himself, and he offers occasional advice and a listening ear as she babbles her problems and fears to him. She has to deal with endless bug attacks, oppressive heat, illness, injuries, and dwindling food and water supplies. Even more terrifying than these problems, however, is the feeling she has that a creature is stalking her through the woods, watching her every move and waiting to claim her for its own.

Rather than having regular chapter numbers, the book is divided into innings. This clever strategy creates an apt metaphor between Trisha's struggle to survive and an exciting baseball game. Some innings see her on top and making great decisions. In other innings, she falls back. By the end of the story, it's the bottom of the ninth and the story has reached a save situation. Will Trisha triumph like her hero Tom Gordan and close the game in her favor, or will nature hit a home run and defeat her?

This was a great survival story, and not exactly what I was expecting from a Stephen King novel. It was scary, but not in the way of stories like The Shining or It. It wasn't like a horror movie, it was very realistic. Nature, as I learned, is scary enough on its own; it doesn't need the addition of monsters or supernatural events. Trisha was written very well. She was sympathetic and brave - an easy character to like. I was rooting for her throughout the story, hoping feverishly that she'd make it out of the woods. Her hallucinations were well done as well, with Tom Gordon showing up occasionally to signal the decline of Trisha's health.

One element of the story that wasn't so enjoyable for me were the descriptions of the Red Sox games that Trisha listens to during her time in the woods. I am not a baseball fan, so I didn't understand some of the language that went on in these sections. I was a bit bored during those parts and just wanted to get back to the story. However, these games were important tethers to reality for Trisha's character, so I understand their inclusion. They aren't too long or frequent, so it was ultimately fine. Understanding baseball is not a prerequisite for enjoying this novel, but it probably would have helped me to know the terminology a bit better.

If I had to be stuck in bed with a cough, this wasn't a bad way to spend the day. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a highly engaging story with a likable heroine and a fast-paced plot. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone looking for a quick and entertaining summer read.


Challenge Tally
Popsugar Challenge: (a book set in the wilderness) 34/40

Total Books Read in 2017: 39