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Boy's Life

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Boy's Life

Written by: Robert R. McCammon
Narrated by: George Newbern
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About this listen

In me are the memories of a boy's life, spent in that realm of enchantments. These are the things I want to tell you....

Robert McCammon delivers "a tour de force of storytelling" (BookPage) in his award-winning masterpiece, a novel of Southern boyhood, growing up in the 1960s, that reaches far beyond that evocative landscape to touch listeners universally. Boy's Life is a richly imagined, spellbinding portrait of the magical worldview of the young - and of innocence lost. Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for 11-year-old Cory Mackenson - a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake - and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face with a terrible, haunting vision of death. As Cory struggles to understand his father's pain, his eyes are slowly opened to the forces of good and evil that surround him. From an ancient mystic who can hear the dead and bewitch the living, to a violent clan of moonshiners, Cory must confront the secrets that hide in the shadows of his hometown - for his father's sanity and his own life hang in the balance....

©2014 Robert R. McCammon (P)2014 Simon & Schuster Audio Coming of Age Fantasy Genre Fiction Horror Suspense Thriller & Suspense Scary Fiction Paranormal
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This is my second audiobook by RM. I'll be binge-listening to his entire catalogue for a while.

Great story.

Fantastic!

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I loved this book. I read it decades ago and never forgot how well it captured being a boy growing up in a small town, with best friends and adventures. So it has been great to revisit it again and remember why I loved it in the first place.

Wonderful story, and well told.

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I was recommended this book but was initially skeptical about its story. As time passed, I became more intrigued by ML's development. Although the plot could have been more straightforward, I liked the book overall.

What a fun story

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I first read this book years ago and always listed it as one of my favourites. Listening to it again as an audiobook did not diminish the magic of the stories.

The stories are rife with lessons, but they are deftly applied and don’t detract from enjoying the voyage. If you long for the magic of childhood, you can find it here. It still is one of my favourites.

A Boy’s Best Life

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I enjoyed this trip down McCammon’s memory lane. Good writing as usual, many interesting details woven together and reappearing here and there. There is even suspense as the different threads unwind towards the end.

Entertaining

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A poignant tale threaded throughout with mystery, magic, hope, sadness, laughter and lessons. Robert McCammon is an excellent writer, whether he pens a marvelous story such as Boy's Life or those that are borne out of the darker side of his imagination. George Newbern's narration is, as always, impeccable. Get this book... it is worth it!

Love this book.

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This story was a beautiful stroll through the life of a boy. It’s reminiscent of Something Wicked This Way Comes and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It’s well worth the read!

Bradbury Meets Irving

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I tried really hard. I waited and waited and waited for something to happen…but it never really did. This is less a story than it is a mumble jumble of stories. Sometimes I felt like they were converging into something compelling…but then they’d separate and fade away again. The writing is beautiful, the performance excellent but I just could not find a way into the story. It’s a 20+ hour listen and the payoff happens in the last two hours! I read so many reviews that praised it from one end to the other…to the point where I felt like something was wrong with me. I guess I need more of a plot.

Waited and waited…

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I don't think this book is bad but I just didn't like it. I can appreciate it has a particular style and quality of writing but it just never pulled me in.

It's very slow. For me that translated to boring. One thing happens, and then another thing happens, and so on, and they're written with lots of detail and feeling and meaning and poignancy, but I never became invested enough for any of it to matter.

It is written in a meandering, detailed, "look at this slice of life" kind of way, and except for the fact everything is happening to the same boy almost nothing seems to relate to any kind of big picture story.
There is a murder discovered right at the start of the book so you get the impression that is what the book is going to be about. However little to no time at all is spend on this plot point. It almost completely fades into the background except for random intervals and a rushed resolution at the end. Instead you mostly just get random episodes in the life of a boy growing up in a small town.

There is a bit of disconnect as well between what is meant to be the boy's imagination and what is meant to be real. Some fantastical elements are written as though they are real and it's jarring compared to how the rest of the book is clearly very grounded in a non-fantastical reality.

So it's slow, the main character is uninteresting, and it's long. I wouldn't have finished if not for being able to speed up the narration. It reminds me of a book one might read in an English class. There is a lot of meaning and much to think about if you want to, but there are more enjoyable books out there. Unless you are invested in the author or like slice-of-life/meaning-of-life Americana books I would not recommend it.

Slow, wandering "slice of life"

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