Horror Fiction - Reader Recommendations

Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
Horror title - I read the Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Janice Dibble Nov 28, 2008 4:32 PM


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The main character, a nine year-old girl, who is out hiking with her mother and brother, wantders of the trail during the hike for just a moment and ends up getting lost. At first she thinks she'll hook up with them further along - that the 2 trails will join together but soon realizes she hears no humans and sees no path-joining. She faces challenge after challenge - as I read I kept thinking oh, no, she's only a little girl, and then, I couldn't deal with the fear and figure out what to do next as well as she is! She's very plucky and uses her brain -- a stream runs into a bigger stream or a river and will lead me to civilization. She gets stung and wet and hungry and thirsty and hurt and keeps going. And, worst of all - what else is in the forest and is following her and what will it do when it catches her. So, there's lots of Fear in this fast-paced novel. She thinks about her broken family - loves her mom and dad but they're not together. She had a llittle food and water and found things to eat but best of all she has a walkman/radio so she can listen to baseball games and her favorite player Tom Gordon. As things get worse Tricia talks and walks with Tom Gordon but she knows she's hallucinating. And does she survive . . . .? And what supernatural or natural being was following her and will it harm her ?

This was a great book - very frightening, very easy to identify with this lost little girl, you'd think a walk in the woods with your family woud be great - and why did it have to Rain?

This is a great psychological horror novel. Would make a great TV movie.


Fiction Recommendations:
First I would recommend other Stephen King novels because he is such a good writer and storyteller. If you like Stephen King, you are likely to read other titles by him even if they aren't in the same subgenre. A lot of our readers who read all of Stephen King also read all of Dean Koontz and Peter Straub so I would ask the reader if he/she has tried Dean Koontz or Peter Straub.

There are lists of Psychological Horror that I could check. Hooked on Horror has a Chapter on Psychological Horror. However, when I looked at the "similar titles" list under The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, there weren't many book titles and two of suggested titles had reviews/synopsis that didn't seem to match that much and had mixed or bad reviews as books to read. The closest in storyline that was suggested is Thunderland by Brandon Massey, which has a 12 year-old boy as the protagonist and some mixed reviews - with some good reviews. So, I would show the reader the synopsis and book review(s) for the reader to consider.

I did find some library lists for psychological horr as well, here's one although there are no annotations to guide the reader: http://auburn-hills.lib.mi.us/Adult/Booklist/PsychHorror.htm

If the person was interested in the character focus of a young child, I would ask if he/she had read To Kill a Mockingbird. With Scout, a young child, who faces terror and the unknown especially regarding Boo Radley and the house, the reader might find this a good match. I would describe the storyline since that is quite different from Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Nonfiction recommendations:
I would recommend Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, a story about a recent college graduate--so young but not as young as King's character - who goes into the wilds of Alaska and faces a tragic end. So, not only is there a relatively youthful figure, but the setting of the wilderness and storyline of surviving or not surviving in the wild. Into the Wild is well-written so the appeal of wrting skill may be a bonus.

I would also recommend A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson if the reader found the setting of walking a trail intriguing and wanted to learn more. More particularly, it is also about the Appalachian Trail. And similarly, it's a story about the "adventure" of going into nature and succeeding on the walk. Also, well-written. Differences are that this is an adult and has lots of humor.

I could also head into the world of baseball for nonfiction.