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Gerald's Game for 15 year old?
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Andrea
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Jul 17, 2012 05:21AM
Im starting to read more Stephen King. I am thinking about getting Gerald's Game. Is seems very mature. Is it inappropriate for a 15 year old in your opinion?
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I read it at 17, and it is very mature. I really like Gerald's Game, and as Kyle said it is pretty underrated. I remember getting weird looks at school when people saw me holding a hardcover novel with handcuffs attached to a bed :P
Just finished re-reading this one. It's appropriate. Stephen King sex scenes are tame by comparison of many authors these days and the horror and gore in this one is also not too heavy.
It's pretty tame but you may want to discuss with the teen if you think topic is sensitive.
Okay. I did not want to read it if it was too graphic. Thanks everybody!
I think a lot of us rabid Sai King fans started when we were 15 (or younger). Gerald's Game was actually one of the later ones I read, prolly read that one when I was 20 maybe.
This is one of the few that gave me nightmares. I read it when it came out, which was when I was 15.(Which is not to say I advocate keeping a 15 year old from reading it, just accept the fact that nightmares might ensue!)
I read Gerald's game around that age. Heck, I might have been a year younger now that I think about it.As for it being inappropriate, that really all depends on the maturity level of the 14 year old him/herself I would say. Without spoiling things too much, the book does have a heavy theme of sexuality and sexual abuse. It is a very psychological novel where the heroine really has to mentally confront some heavy issues from her past, and that can be somewhat disquieting....at least for me it was.
But if the teenager has read King before, and is of the level where they can talk and think about the nature of sexuality without giggling like a lobotomized Beavis and Butt-Head, I would say they should give it a try. Its quite different from King's usual fare of ghosts and goblins.
The book loosely ties into Dolores Clairborne, which is a much tamer read for a 14 year old. but I would suggest both.
Do I think Gerald's Game should be available to 15-year-olds..? No, I do not.
But rather than act the part of Big Brother and blatantly censor what someone should read, why not talk with the reader in question and see for yourself whether or not they can handle such subject matter? Not all teenagers are going to read this and become disturbed sex-crazed maniacs. That notion belongs right up with Reefer Madness in the ludicrous category. Censoring media is just going to make it all the more alluring as a "forbidden fruit" for those curious enough to want to read it. Mature conversation and explanation is the way to make a younger reader understand the themes...By the way Scott, bondage play only figures into the novel a very little while in the opening. The majority of it takes place within her head/memories/conversations with herself. It hardly qualifies as some dark, perverted theme King went for.
I can't really answer this question because I don't know the 15 year old but I would ask if they've read other King and what King, because that might give me an idea of the level of sex/violence they can handle.
I was young when I first read this book. Don't remember at the moment exactly what age, but I think I was around 12, give or take a couple years, I handled it just fine. But yea, it depends on the individual.
These people and their Anglo sensibilities. Of course this book is OK for a 15 year old. I think we should not pretend to children that the world is anything other than what it is. Anglophiles may have a problem with this, I however, do not.
k wrote: "These people and their Anglo sensibilities. Of course this book is OK for a 15 year old. I think we should not pretend to children that the world is anything other than what it is. Anglophiles m..."FINALLY! Someone speaks some sense! Well said k!
Damn Puritan pukes sicken me as well! If you don't like something, don't have anything to do with it...but don't tell someone else that its not ok just because you have a stick up your ass.
All I can say is I read it at ten, and didn't find it all that shocking in comparison to Game of Thrones etc.
