Stewart O'Nan

A tragic car accident that kills three teens while leaving one hospitalized with brain damage and another suffering with guilt yields more pain one year later when the spirits of the three dead kids return to torment the survivors.

The Night Country

Stephen King

A chronicle of the Boston Red Sox's 2004 baseball season features a running diary of observations, arguments, play analyses, and controversial management decisions, as recorded by a pair of best-selling horror writers and diehard Red Sox fans.

Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season

Faithful

Kristen Claiborn

I have tried many times to get excited about baseball, but I just can’t do it. I find the game exceptionally bland. Unless I’m at a ballpark with a hot dog and a beer, I’m not really interested in watching a game (with the exception of that one game the Cubs won that one time that was super exciting). I get the game, I truly do, it’s just boring. One of my grandfathers was a huge baseball guy, and I wanted to be able to share that with him, but between my not caring about the game and his not wanting to be distracted during games, that was not to be. Why, then, did I decide to read a book that is HUGE and exclusively about the Boston Red Sox? 
	Because it’s a Stephen King, that’s why. 
	I admit I had not head of Stewart O’Nan prior to picking up this book, but I’m now intrigued and might actually look up his other books. Having been a Stephen King fan for decades, I felt like I needed to give this one a read (largely because it’s one of the only books by him that I hadn’t yet read). I knew it was going to be about baseball, so I steeled myself for a lesson in tolerating blandness. I’m sure for fans of the game, especially fans of Boston, this book would be far more intriguing, but for me it was boring as hell. 
	The four stars I decided to give this book were based entirely on the amount of time and effort these two men put into it. Both of these men are successful authors and they both are involved family men. How they found the time to consume baseball to this extent blew my mind. It’s set up like a daily journal throughout the season, starting with Spring Training and ending with an unlikely World Series win in 2004. They both attended Spring Training in Florida, then a LARGE number of games throughout the season, somehow managing to juggle their love for the game with their careers and families. AND they both managed to write about it…a lot. I firmly believe they didn’t sleep that entire season. 
	I was impressed by the dedication these guys had to chronicle everything about that season, even if I wasn’t impressed with the subject matter. It’s certainly not their fault I’m not a baseball fan. It’s an impressive work, but skip it if you’re not a Stephen King fanatic or a huge Boston Red Sox fan.

The Night Country

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