Gerald's Game by Stephen King - Book Review

It was fun in the beginning. The handcuffs, the isolation, the vulnerability. But sometimes things can get out of hand and this time, Jessie wasn’t playing along.

If only Gerald had heeded her pleas; listened to her protests and understood they were genuine. But Gerald liked to play, taking her pleas as part of his game. But Jessie wasn’t playing and this time the game really did go too far.

When Jessie strikes out, kicking her husband in the chest during one of their “special games” at their secluded lake house, he suffers a heart attack and dies. Finding herself restrained to the bed with no way of freeing herself, she quickly realizes that this game was about to take a twisted turn into hell.

With night time approaching and the voices in her head getting louder, Jessie soon realizes that no one is coming to rescue her. Hopelessly tied to the bed, Jessie descends into a night of terror that will consume her very sanity.

Gerald’s Game was a book I put off reading for many years, not really interested in its subject matter. A woman tied to a bed with her dead husband at her feet. What could it possibly bring to the table when so many other books promised so much more? But that was a mistake I quickly realized once I picked it up just before the movie version was released.

Wow. Don’t think it will have enough terror for you? It reaches fever-levels by the time you finish it, the creepiness of the whole thing leaving me with goose bumps and shuddering at the very thought of being caught in that kind of predicament.

The tension is so real, it leaves you squirming a little as you sit on the edge of the bed, listening to the fear in the woman’s voice. The execution of the story is brought to vivid life, each shadow brought to reality with incredible detail.