The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King

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In the first chapter, titled the Pregame, Stephen King writes: “The world had teeth, and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old.”

Trisha is going on a small day trip to the forest with her Mom and elder brother. She takes a baseball cap, her Walkman, and some food. As they move on the trail, her brother and mom are absorbed in their quarreling. Trisha lags behind and tells them to wait for her when she has to go to the bathroom, but they don’t hear her and keep going. She steps off the trail but never finds her way back.

Trisha is lost. She tries to stay calm and shouts for help but winds up going in the wrong direction. She fears no one has noticed her missing as she walks, constantly eaten by the mosquitoes. As it gets dark, she is starving and eats some of her food supplies. Alone she finds companionship with the Walkman and listens to a ball game that evening which helps her forget the forest noise she is sure she has heard of, the cracking of a branch and something following her.

She wanders for days having some hallucinations where she meets three strange people, two in white clothes and the other one – in black. After two days, her food supply is gone, and as her hallucinations become more frequent, she starts talking with the baseball star she worships, Tom Gordon, who appears to her off and on.

Her mother and brother found when they finally returned to the car that first day that Trisha was not with them. She wanders for days and is far away from the search area.

Eventually, she is found but is confronted with a bear-like beast. We finally learn of how she is saved in the final chapter called the Postgame.

Stephen King keeps you not wanting to put the book down in this simple but well-constructed story.

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