Hearts in Atlantis (by Stephen King)
As a devoted fan of Stephen King, I have been buying all of his books when they are published for a few decades. When I purchased this book, I didn’t think I would like it very much as I perceived it as having a heavy connection to the Viet Nam war. I’m just not drawn to books about war or the history of wars. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this book!
King wrote Hearts in Atlantis in a unique style. There are five stories that are linked via characters and each take place chronologically between 1960 and 1999. The first story is my favorite. Eleven-year-old Bobby Garfield befriends an older man, Ted, who moves into the same house that has been turned into multiple apartments. The two developed a really cool relationship; I especially love how Ted exposed Bobby to books.
Each subsequent story takes a character from the first story and describes their life during the next time frame. The second story was really good too. A group of college freshman get caught up in playing the card game, Hearts, to the extreme of interfering with their studies.
Stories three and four were just okay for me. The first two stories were pretty lengthy and it seemed like King ran out of energy when he got to the fourth story. The final story wrapped up with Bobby returning to his hometown and encountering people that were important to him back then...people he never forgot about nor stopped loving.
When I purchased Hearts in Atlantis, I was given promotional dog tags from the bookseller, pictured below. One is stamped Stephen King - Walden Books, and the other is stamped Hearts in Atlantis - Walden Books. These might be collector items for the book as well as the bookstore which sadly hasn’t been around in awhile.
I haven’t seen the movie based on this book. Pretty much because I misperceived this book as having a military war theme. A couple of the characters serve in Viet Nam and other characters are introduced to war protesting, but that’s as overt as the military theme gets. Since I loved this book, I looked for the movie trailer on YouTube. It’s below if you’re curious like me. I definitely want to see this movie now! I’m intrigued to see how the filmmakers worked all five stories into movie format, or whatever route they chose to bring this book to life on screen.
Last, but not least. I love the back cover of this book. It’s an integral part of the story. I chose to picture it with one of my Stephen King Funko Pops.
You’re welcome to check out my review of another Stephen King book below.
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