Reviews with content warning for Murder - Bag of Bones

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

19 reviews

emmiemopho's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

my “Whyyyy stephenn???” List:

Bag of Bones 1998

-referring to a child as being an exotic taste

-“Breasts”

-His classic racism towards Japanese people

-The way he mansplains what masturbation is

-Blue balling

-His sex scenes take me out

-The question of “did I rape the 5 year old?” In his sleep and wasn’t necessarily upset about it

-The list of all the things you can (and shouldn’t) call a black man

-At first screws his wife and then R’s her corpse in dreamland

-V.C. Andrews is regarded as his professional enemy (interesting)

-Mal-formed Dwarves might turn him on? Was that a joke? Why was that placed during a fantasy thought???

-He always has a tangent about fat people

-Women in need of help are to be sexualized completely.

-“Stroking”

-Just some other proof the main character is him: MC talks about naming the book he’s writing “bag of bones”.

-Regains a trust point: MC does not like black people being called bad words-although is this black people generally done or is it specific to the band he likes so much? So maybe not so much of a trust point.

-Over half way and he mentions something the little girl says sounds Vietnamese & exotic

-Whenever someone mentions how young the MC’s crush is, he imagines her in a vulgar way and seems to have an obsession with her being just above legal.

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lay_kone's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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bealiliwen's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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sighclopss's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Definitely a slow paced book, you spend at least half the book unsure if the things occuring around the main character (Mike) are truely paranormal phenomenon or just manifestion/metaphores of his grief. Although described as a ghost story, I found the reality far more compelling. Mike dealing with comp icated grief after his wife's death, Mikes involvement in a custody battle, Mike learning about the town's history, and subsequentlly his own ancestry.

I liked that it was written like a mystery, lots of foreshadowing and scattered hints that you tucked away to piece together in the end.

This is the second Stephen King book I've read, and can definitely see a pattern of themes emerging. Very influenced by the cultural climate of the era it was written in. The intense racism can be jarring, especially paired with the sexual violence.

I really enjoyed Mike as a character, I wish the ending had of been a happier though, they all deserved it.

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ajp824's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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anni_in_wonderland's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

The following review contains some very, very mild spoilers, if you consider the general mention of themes spoilers. If you want to go in blind, best skip it altogether. I will tag outright spoilers though.

I started this book three years ago - took a long break on page 120 and then finally gave myself to finish it this summer. The remaining pages (under 400) still took me two months.

This book has a long exposition - and I mean a long one! This is aided by the fact that the book is made up of three different subplots - with the start of the book exclusively focussing on the first, before slowly introducing the other two:

1) A middle-aged bestseller author is struggling to produce more work and coming to terms witht he untimely and unexpected death of his wife.

2) A very young, widowed mother finds herself in a custody battle for her three year old with her very rich, very evil father-in-law.

3) A black musical troupe that had settled in the area for a bit in the early 1900s met an unfotunate fate of some way - this is a mystery to be solved.

I did not like this book but I cared enough about the mystery and two of the side characters, Mattie Devore and her daughter Kyra, to finish.

My issues with this book:

1. Unlikable main character

I have several issues with this book - the first one being the main character Mike Noonan, who I can only describe as a cringeworthy middle aged man. Large parts of the book are dedicated to his lust (he mistakes it for love but it is lust) for a woman half his age who is in an extremely vulnerable position.

Although Mattie reciprocates, I feel the responsibility is on him: He is twice her age, she is literally financially dependent on im, he keeps offering her money, she's a fan of his work, he is educated and worldly, she's a high school dropout. Don't get me wrong, I actually love Mattie, she's a great character and I would have loved to read her story but the power imbalance in this relationship is outright icky and Mike Noonan knows and tries to justify it in his head.

Mike Noonan also spends quite a bit of time judging the people in the small Maine town where most of this book takes place, without ever critically examining his own opinions. His description and judgment of some of these minor characters actually reveals so much about his own bigotry - and I have an excellent example that highlights this issue. The description of one of the henchmen working for the evil baddie (more on him later) goes as follows:

“He was handsome in a way that would be attractive to certain women - the kind who rarely call the police when things go wrong at home because, on some miserable secret level, they believe they deserve things to go wrong at home. Wrong things that result in black eyes, dislocated elbows, the occasional cigarette burn on the booby. These are women who more often than not call their husbands or lovers Daddy, as in ‘Can I bring you a beer, daddy?’ or ‘Did you have a hard day at work, daddy?’”

This character is sometimes referred to as “Daddy” later on in the book, it is unknown if he is married or in a relationship and there are no women present in this scene. And yet for some reason Mike Noonan - I am giving King the benefit of the doubt that he wrote an unlikable main character on purpose - manages to make the entire description of his first impression of this man about blaming and shaming victims of domestic abuse. I just can’t with it - and I nearly did not finish at this point.

Something kept me going though. Lucky me, because I would have missed an absolute banger. This time Noonan is describing another henchman of super-evil-villain-guy:

“Durgin chuckles fatly. ‘Why not?’ He was a fat guy. Most fat people I like - they have expansive natures to go with the expansive waistlines. But there is a subgroup which I think of as Evil Little Fat Folks. You don’t want to fuck with ELFFs if you can help it; they will burn your house and rape your dog if you give them half an excuse and a quarter of an opportunity.”

Wow, just wow. This reeks of “I’m not a fatphobe, look I have fat friends, but…” The way these descriptions are worked into the book are just bizarre and expose Noonan as a bigot. Now, maybe this is King’s intention, maybe we are supposed to like the main character but then why do we spend so much time with him and why does the narrative frame him like the good guy? This is worsened by the fact I find all the female side characters - Sara Tidwell, Jo Noonan and Mattie Devore - to be much more interesting. I would have enjoyed their perspectives.

2. One-dimensional villains

The main villain of the book is Max Devore, Mattie’s father-in-law who is fighting for custody of his granddaughter. He employs a number of evil lackeys to do the dirty work for him, including a lady who is his PA and who is always written to seem closer to his age (he is in his eighties) but then the epilogue casually throws in:

Oh no, she was only in her fifties but had leukemia, which made her look older. This was such a random thing to throw in.

Max Devore is an evil man that comes from a bloodline of evil men. There is not much more about it, no villain origin story, no nuance, nothing. I found this a little boring.

3. Racism and Blackness are only viewed through the lens of white characters

Racism is a major driving theme in the plot that evolves around Sara Tidwell and her musical troupe - a plot arch that takes place in the early 1900s. Sara seems like such an interesting character but we only ever learn of her experience through Mike’s eyes, never her own. Major spoiler ahead:

Honestly, her plot is just so bonkers. She serves a plot point as she was gang raped - something described in graphical detail - and she dies and he son, the only witness, is drowned. She then haunts the descendants of her rapists and possesses people to drown some of their children. In some way she is the biggest victim but is also the evil spirit that needs to be stopped to save the lives of innocent children. He horrific fate just serves as a (gorey) plot point though.

I would have loved a story that focuses on Sara’s experience - this could have been a similarly haunting and important book in a similar vein to “Beloved”.

The ony positive aspect I can highlight is that Stephen King has a great way with word and the setting of the loghouse by the lake was a fantastic one for a scary story. I cared enough about Mattie and Kyra Devore and Sara Tidwell to finish, and this is despite them not getting the treatment of being very fleshed out characters. The way the setting is established and implemented shows craftsmanship and it's worth 1 star for me. Nonetheless, this book is not for me - and it has mostly certainly aged extremely poorly. I am a but surprised this still seems to review so well on average.

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bookbelle5_17's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Review of Bag of Bones

By: Stephen King

It’s been four years since author, Mike Noonan, lost his wife, Jo, and he hasn’t been able to write a new book. He finally gets the courage to return to the lake house, Sarah Laughs, that they bought years go. He realizes the place is haunted by Jo and the black singer the house is named for Sarah Tidwell. Mike meets Mattie, a young mother, whose husband died years ago, and her computer tycoon father in-law wants Mattie and his son’s daughter, Kyra, by any means necessary. Mike finds himself mixed up in this custody battle and this situation might be connected to the hauntings in his vacation house.

This is quite a spooky and emotional read following similar themes to Lisey’s Story. Both stories are about widowers and being haunted by the memories of their dead spouses. In Bag of Bones the roles are reversed from Lisey’s Story where the one left behind is the writer. This story deals with so much more than grief. There is a plot about racism that is horrifying and sad to read as once again King doesn’t sugar coat anything. Like in most of his books, the story highlights the ugly side of humanity through racism and a custody battle. We also get a chilling ghost story that made me fear for the lives of our characters. Once again, King does include content that not everybody will comfortable like hearing characters use the “N” and “W” word, a rape, scene, and an age gap relationship. Romance does come off as authentic, to me at least, but the huge age gap is weird to me. The relationship between Mike and Kyra Noonan is sweet and endearing and we right amount of Kyra for het to not be annoying. Max Devore was a great and hatable villain, though the custody battle wasn’t as intriguing as the ghost story. Since the story zooms in on Mike and his relationship with the Devores, the secondary characters aren’t as developed, but I did we want to understand them better. King may include content that makes him a polarizing author, but he knows how to tell a rather good tale.

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