Customer Reviews

Survivor

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not a book for readers who want a quick plot and fast action. Rather, this is a book to savor and experience. It is a character study more than a tightly wrapped story. The author is clever by grabbing the reader in the beginning of the book with a horrible accident and its aftermath. In my case, once the book got my attention, even as it began to meander into the psyches of its characters, I was hooked. The characters are at once compelling and totally infuriating, especially Kissy, the female lead. There were times when I thought "You go girl!" and times when I wanted to reach into the book and slap her for her thick-headedness. But no matter how I felt about any of the characters, I was emotionally drawn into the story, which is always a satisfying experience when reading. It was easy to become totally lost in the book - I would often be reading into the wee hours of the morning. This book may not be for everyone, but for me it was one of the best books I have read in quite a while. I actually slowed my reading down towards the end, because I just wasn't quite ready to let go. Again, don't just read this book - experience it.

I picked this book up for a dollar and only bought it because I knew Stephen King's wife wrote it. I had been reading his novels from the beginning of his career. So I didn't hold out a lot of hope for her book. BOY!! Was I wrong!! This is one of the best books I have ever read, period. I found myself actually caring about the characters as if they were real. It has been quite sometime since I could feel that emotionally attached to a fictional being. I felt Kissy's pain, ups and downs, and I really wanted her marriage to work as much as she did. I highly recommend this book to anyone who.... well, anyone, period.

Fiction about the results of postmodern family fragmentation usually focuses on the failures, not the survivors, perhaps because the failures may come across as sympathetic-while the survivors probably don't. What survivors may win from their chaotic experiences is a brittle, uneven, unkind strength. Tabitha King's young protagonist, Kristin "Kissy" Mellors, brings that kind of strength out of the chaos of her youth. We learn that Kissy was raised by feckless, undependable/uncaring parents and enjoyed no stability until she landed at Sowerwine University. Her college is really her first home.

At twenty-one or so, Kissy is a talented photographer with some issues. She doesn't like men, but she does like sleeping with them; unfortunately, she isn't very good at actually avoiding bad men, and she's not all that consistent with contraception, which has made for some trouble in her life and will make for some more. She seems to live with the constant low terror that a sensitive young person would feel, lacking all real backup and knowing that one false move may undo everything she's put together for herself, but not sure what kind of move is a false one. In the midst of senior-year stress and the aftermath of witnessing a tragic car accident, Kissy meets rising hockey star Junior Clootie. The need for intimacy and connection is what Kissy and Junior share. In a reversal of the usual sexual scenario, he's the one who admits his need. Sexual harmony (and hot sex scenes) follow.

Unfortunately, a serious mistake by Junior forever undermines Kissy's shaky faith in him, after which follow a breakup, a reunion, a contraceptive failure, a marriage...and then things really go downhill. In excruciating psychologically accurate detail, the reader gets to see Kissy grind Junior slowly and painfully to little bits. Furthermore, while so doing, Kissy also grinds herself slowly and painfully to little bits. Junior is no more immature than most men of twenty or twenty-one and kinder, more patient, and more perceptive than the rank and file of humanity; he's an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time, namely in the path of Kissy's destructive rage. The cycle is continued in the storm-torn, tossed-from-pillar-to-post childhood of their daughter Dynah.

Tabitha King achieves the same feat that Tanith Lee managed with Rachaela, the protagonist of her Blood Opera series: creating an unsympathetic character who manages to command readers' interest and...well...sympathy. Kissy, who seems to benefit from Junior's generous support even after divorcing him, is mean and venial and chronically unable to cut any other human a millimeter of slack, and yet it is no stretch to pity her at the book's desolate ending.

Every instant of this character's experience is rendered with believability that leaves a reader thinking: "Yes, people act like that. Yes, they suffer like that. Yes, they're usually unable to stop doing the things that make them suffer like that. This happens all the time, everywhere."

I love Stephen King's books, buy every one of them as soon as it comes out, and read it until I either finish it or have a headache, in which case I finish it the next night. But Tabitha King is a better novelist than her man Stephen. He writes about the symbolic language into which we translate our fears. The devices of the horror genre are more-malleable, more-endurable ways to think about loss, dead ends, failure, humiliation, helplessness, hunger, and other true vectors of human pain. Tabitha King writes directly about what we have to fear.

First of all, let me say this book is extremely well-written. Ms. King has a unique style and an excellent command of the written word. I do not do too many of these reviews because it is SO SO SO much easier to critique something than create something, and this is a thoughtful book that obviously took its author a great deal of time and energy to craft.

The content is where I had a problem. I found the character Kissy to be steadfast only in her inconsistency. This book should be entitled "Victim" rather than "Survivor". Its characters revel in their own pathos and anger and seem never to stop and ask why they are so angry. Kissy feels so morally superior for not having a substance abuse problem, yet she offers the book no moral compass. Even her visitation of Ruth seems to be a strange science experiment.

We are SUPPOSED to believe, I think, that Kissy is tough and doesn't take any crap from anyone. This is the biggest lie in the book. True toughness involves compassion, sensitivity, the desire to do the right thing and TRUE confrontation--answering the WHY of the behavior not just the WHAT. Kissy simply moves from one self-destructive place to the next, a victim of her own irrational anger at the world.

Does Kissy have any goals? I don't know. Why is she this way? I don't know. I think I could have given this book four stars if I had any idea WHY Kissy did one thing she did in the book. Why in God's name if she is that drawn to men and has fits of irrational behavior is she not on the Pill, like, ALWAYS? Why does she constantly erupt in anger and stalk out when an honest effort on her part might have healed at least a portion of her pain? She seems to hate men, all men, and yet she cannot resist them? This was all puzzling to me which is why I decided to write this review.

If you look for nobility and conscience and morality in your characters (I confess I do), this is not your book. If you are looking for something edgy and baffling, give it a read.

This book is very captivating from the beginning. It is the story of Kissy Mallor, a young woman who while driving on campus in her Maine college town finds herself daydreaming, and nearing hitting two co-eds crossing the street, only to then witness the horror of the driver behind her then striking the two girls killing one and putting the other into a lingering coma. She feels an inexplicable need (perhaps driven by guilt) to photograph the comatose girl and ends up falling into tumuluous relationships with three men involved in the accident: The boyfriend of the comatose girl, the premed who struck the girls and one of the officers at the scene of the crime...all of whom she has sex with at some point or another. Suddenly finding herself pregnant she marries Cootie, the boyfriend. Then finds herself in a loveless, violent marriage. It is at this point that the book falls apart slightly, as Kissy jumps from a marriage with Cootie to a marriage with Mike, the officer...even though the father of her child is probably the premed student. It get's ridiculous at this point yet remains captivating as you are interested in how it works out in the end (which I won't give away). This book starts out stong but weekends towards the middle and end.

Not a bad book, an interesting peek into lives that are very unlike mine. My major, MAJOR gripe is the abrupt ending. It tied up one story line, but left a half dozen others just hanging. What about Junior? Who's pregnant and by whom and what will happen? Though not completely neccessary, I'd like to know if Kissy is blamed for what happens in the end or not. I really feel as though another chapter or two would have been nice. Reveal whether Kissy is a strong woman under the mess, how the marriage might fare, careers, etc.

I absolutely loved this book! Being from Maine, I have always read Stephen King and found his wife's books quite by accident one day. I first read the Trap and found it very gripping and actually kind of erotic in a way. Survivor was a complete takeover! I couldn't put it down! I loved the characters, the dilemas,and the sex scenes!I have the Book of Reuben ready to start-can't wait!

As is the case with many of Ms. King's novels, I found myself drawn more to her male characters than the females. Junior Clootie is hard to love, but he grew on me just like he did the story's heroine, Kissy Mellors. Their intensely sexual relationship is volatile and frustrating, but no matter how mad I got at both of them, I ached for them to be together where they belonged. When an author can make you laugh, cry, and get so mad you throw the book across the room, you don't forget the characters when you close the book, and that's the way it was for me with Junior and Kissy.

This book will be somthing that you can not put down! It goes through the life of a girl that makes decisions that keep her from being happy! It's a tale that goes through a womans life from college girl to beautiful woman. An inspiring story for any woman! Although, the ending could have been a little better,it's a must read book! The ending is why i gave it 4 stars! I will be reading more Tabitha King books in the future! Just goes to show what a five dollar book can bring very enjoyable reading! Christie

Being a long time fan of Stephen King, I picked this book up out of sheer curiosity of Tabitha King's writing style and genre. And...IMHO...she is good!

I enjoyed reading about these flawed characters and their struggles to live their lives and carve out careers in the face of many adversities and not so fairy tale beginnings and endings. It is thought provoking and gritty.

Well done!