Lost Boys: A Novel | Orson Scott Card | its been a while since I read Enders Game, but this might...

Lost Boys: A Novel | Orson Scott Card | Interesting

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Lost Boys: A Novel

	Lost Boys: A Novel Orson Scott Card HarperTorch, 1993 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 154 reviews view larger image
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For Step Fletcher, his pregnant wife DeAnne, and their three children, the move to tiny Steuben, North Carolina, offers new hope and a new beginning. But from the first, eight-year-old Stevie's life there is an unending parade of misery and disaster.

Cruelly ostracized at his school, Stevie retreats further and further into himself -- and into a strange computer game and a group of imaginary friends.

But there is something eerie about his loyal, invisible new playmates: each shares the name of a child who has recently vanished from the sleepy Southern town. And terror grows for Step and DeAnne as the truth slowly unfolds. For their son has found something savagely evil ... and it's coming for Stevie next.

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its been a while since I read Enders Game, but this might be the best book of Cards that I have read

Over the years I have read several of Cards books. When his first stories came out I thought that I would be reading every one of them because they were so great. However, over time, I started to pick up one story after another that left me totally unsatisfied. What makes me so up-beat about Lost Boys is that it is really an adult novel that works well on several levels.

First of all, the story is very complicated. Card surrounds this premise with layer upon layer of details that you just don't ordinarily find in genre writing. This got a little long winded at times and I thought that Cards foray into Mormonism, though interesting, was way to predominant. It would have been great if he had edited it down enough so that it would have meshed nicely with the computer programing, but this is just a little bit of a nit-picking exercise on my part.

Secondly, the characters are great. They are based on himself and his family, and this really adds a level of detail that is just inspiring. I could read mundane little episodes and was just sucked into passage after passage. In a lot of ways, this story is lots of small trails that barely link together. In the end they do, like in To Kill A Mocking Bird.

Two reasons for my not giving this book five stars are that the parents a more than a little blind to some goings on of the eldest child. It was frustrating for me to see that they were not asking the right questions or any questions at all. And secondly, as I said before, at times the book slows down to the point of a stall when Card goes into just a little too much detail such as with the Mormon Church.

I think that if you like Cards work, you would really enjoy this story. Well worth picking up. Especially if you are searching for genre writing that is just a little more adult and better thought out than the usual fare.

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Interesting

Wow. Other than the fact that I was listening to the audiobook at work (very repetitive work that does not require a lot of thought) and was crying at the end, it was pretty good.

Others have explained very well the nature of the book. I agree that it started a little slowly at first, but OSC's ability to carve out such detailed and interesting characters made it easy to keep reading. The foreshadowing was subtle at first, then as the book continued, built the suspense nicely. The end was a little abrupt until I immediately thought back to the previous events and realized what had been happening (a bit like at the end of The Sixth Sense). Then, of course, I cried.

I was fascinated by Card's description of everyday life in the LDS church. I don't think the book was intended in any way to be as advertisement for the LDS church. The audiobook includes a section at the end in which Card explains how the book came about. A large part of the story is autobiographical, not the supernatural or criminal aspect, of course. But a lot of Step and DeAnne's relationship and what they went through as a family originated in Card's relocating for a job with Wired magazine. In light of that fact, the story becomes intensely personal. One can see why it was so difficult for Card to write.

I'll be thinking about this one for days.

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What Makes this Book so Good

You have the relationship of the family, despite all the things trying to erode them from the outside, teachers, church members, co-workers and bosses. There is their strong faith too that makes the family appealing even to non-believers like me.
There are lines in this book that made my eyes tear up. When I was mature enough to be moved by this book, the ending made me bawl my eyes out.

There were interesting twists and turns in the story. You'll never really expect the end. It will punch you in the gut.
This book is Orson Scott Card at is finest. Writing a powerful story with characters based on him and his own family. It's right there with Ender's Game and Seventh Son, two other fine books by Orson Scott Card.

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