While there are no otherworldly monstrosities to be seen, this book is survival horror in an almost literal sense. Interestingly, the sense of horror works from several different angles. You could see
this from the kid's perspective, being lost and cut off from everyone you know with no means of getting re-acclimated. Or, you could view it from the parent's perspective, the fear of losing your kid and having them go through the nightmare that the young girl goes through here.
Our protagonist is Trisha. She's a nine year old, who wanders off the beaten path both to go to the bathroom and to get a break from her fighting family during a road trip.
You wouldn't think that this would be that big a deal. She wouldn't have had to go that far to achieve either of these objectives, but it's enough to throw off her internal compass and she appears unable to regain her bearings.
From here, the book really puts the kid through the ringer. You can't help but feel bad for her. Though, to her credit, she fares better than most kids (either her age or some even older) would fare. She has some basic survival skills: being able to identify which berries to eat and which to avoid and she also makes a point to follow a stream knowing that it would eventually lead to something bigger. The latter doesn't really work out, but it was still an impressive showing.
Oddly, one of my favorite parts of the book is when she stops to listen to baseball games. After the gauntlet she went through, it was nice to see some normalcy returned to her life. I also figured that it
would be a prime time for outside parties to find her, as she remains still for a large chunk of time. Spoiler alert, that doesn't happen.
The first time she does this, the book spends a lot of time almost recapping a game. It does pad out the word count a bit, but for those who enjoy baseball, you might find it to be a fun read.
The book's biggest problem, in my opinion, was the way it was structured. Some of the chapters are very long and there are no breaks. If you can carve out a large chunk of time to read, that's fine, but if you don't, it'll be a hard book to pick up as you don't want to commit.
I was also thrown by the few sections where the narrative jumps to show what Trisha's family is doing. These parts are fine in and of themselves, one could argue that the book could have used more of this, especially in the early portions. The problem is that the book doesn't break to indicate a setting jump, so one minute you're with Trisha and then you're miles away with little to no segue. I can understand the book wanting to focus on Trisha and her trials and tribulations, but if you are going to jump to another location, a sub-chapter would have been a great way to indicate that.
I noted before that the story has no supernatural elements, however, the book does try to have its cake and eat it too. It does try to set up a sort of pantheon and there is a thing lurking in the woods. Sadly, while the prose does well to build it all up, it falls flat as we know it's nothing.
Honestly, I can even understand it given that the protagonist is a scared kid whose imagination is running wild, but at the climax, the book tries to pull something out of thin air by suggesting that what was a black bear might not have been. Again, from Trisha's perspective, I totally get it. She's freaking out and was already hallucinating. The book also makes it clear that by this point, she's running on empty, but having a nearby hunter come to the same conclusion? No, that didn't work for me. Maybe it was to appease readers who demand dark forces be involved, but it didn't fit with what we had seen previously and it wasn't really necessary. The book is plenty unnerving even without some paranormal entity lurking around.
I was surprised that this was never adapted into a film. The way the story is structured, it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult and the right filmmaker could easily bring it to life. It turns out that Romero himself was set to direct an adaptation that never came to be. While we'll never see that, a future adaptation helmed by someone else could still be possible. I honestly think it would work. Adapting King's work has proven tricky in the past, but this one seems like something that they can handle.
Until then, I'd recommend giving this book a read. It's not a King title that immediately jumps out like some of his other works, but it's a solid entry in the library.
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