Un gioco di prestigio crudele e ben costruito, che spiazza il lettore giocando con le sue aspettative, imprigionandolo in un caleidoscopio di immagini dove alla magia dell’infanzia ed ai suoi tesori, giochi ed innocenti filastrocche per bambini, si sostituiscono orrore e morte come in uno dei lugubri spettacoli di magia che ai due protagonisti, gemelli inseparabili nati prima e dopo la mezzanotte, piace inscenare in cantina. If you’re looking for a good scary book to enjoy this Halloween, here is a suggestion: The Other by Thomas Tryon. The 1971 horror classic is a tale of a seemingly bucolic farmhouse in a small Connecticut town in the 1930s. There are no vampires in the story, no ghosts, no swamp monsters or ghouls or zombies or witches. There are two little boys, twins Niles and Holland, the picture of innocence. Or so it seems. The story is told in the voice of one of the boys, now older and a resident of a sanitarium. Insanity, it seems, is a family inheritance, and insanity is at the core of the chilling story that slowly unfolds and culminates in some horrifying deaths.” Really enjoyed the beautiful descriptions of the Pacific Northwest setting, which just so happens to be my favorite American region.

Truly, despite a few disturbing images at the beginning of the telling, I was truly entertained by a relatively pastoral childhood that gradually became darker with all of those accidental mishaps. You can guess that things go downhill, of course, and with every new revelation, it becomes increasingly more interesting until it pretty much blew me away. I'm not saying that it wasn't predictable at a certain point, of course, but what really surprised me was how subtle and well that realization was handled. The resolution was completely top-notch. I know I read this decades ago, and saw the movie version also decades ago as well; it made a big splash on the horror scene prior to Mr. Stephen King's arrival. 50 years later, it still remains a classic of the genre, and being largely set in 1935 does not really suffer from the passage of time. But, as our narrator relates these events, we are uncertain if all is as we have presumed it to be, if we can even trust the storyteller, but worse still, we are held helplessly spellbound as we imagine what emotional punch will be served up next and by whom-

Success!

It did remind me of 'Into the Wild', which I will now have to read. I've seen the film. That association kind of crept up on me. But we've got to be honest with ourselves as readers. Factual history must sometimes be set aside, because that's not what's important in this genre. The Other Boleyn Girl isn't a textbook, it's a novel. It's meant to entice and titillate. Dramatic effect and setting the mood is more important than "getting it right". Taken for what it is, this book excels. At times, it's exciting and tense. At times, it pulls at the heart. There are moments when this is drama at its best.

I think it's a toss up whether the best feature is the narrator's voice or whether it's in the plot twists. Both are superb and fascinating and lulling and it's extremely easy to fall into the idea that the author wanted us to believe. Somewhere along the way, Gregory decided she liked The Other Boleyn Girl better, but it was a conscious decision. A calculated move. She made Mary innocuous of all of this, all the plotting to gain favors that couldn't last, hasty grab for power like she was just a naive pawn in this and did as her family bid her. She was shown as an unwitting, unwillingly player. Not even a slight mention of being the English Mare was laughable here. When Mary had to go do the King, it was all pure and she was in love of course, and but when it was Anne's turn, it was all evil. Haha, yeah right. No one was innocent of playing that game, they were all in it, all were equally guilty of trying to advance the Boleyn family, that was how it went then, that was the game they were playing, well aware they'd pay dearly if it didn't pan out and boy did they pay, or did they? Hey like Martin says when you play make sure you win or you know, you are gonna die. But none of them were innocuous in all of that, not even Anne but especially not Mary. And she wasn't even a major player like Gregory made her out to be. Guterson gives away all his secrets in the beginning. There are no plot surprises, and the novel would have been well served by them. There's also a lot of pretentious literary name-dropping (great, you read esoteric Chinese literature and pretentious beat poetry, let's get on with it, Graham Greene). I can't recommend this book enough, especially as a summer read, since it takes place in the hottest months, during a time before air conditioning, when young boys would play in the haylofts of barns, and adults would sit on their porches, fanning themselves and drinking cold sarsaparilla and root beer to beat the heat. I love anything that has to do with English History and really am kinda fascinated by Henry VIII. After reading so many good things on here and elsewhere about this book I was looking forward to it.Caspita che storia!!! non avrei mai pensato di rimanere incollata alle pagine cosi, devo dire che la narrazione è molto particolare...una scrittura un pò criptica e poco scorrevole che si scontra con molti inserti di piccoli avvenimenti e sottostorie... When the film aired on CBS in the 1970s, the final shot replaces Winnie's line with a voiceover by Niles: "Holland, the game's over. We can't play the game anymore. But when the sheriff comes, I'll ask him if we can play it in our new home." The voiceover is dubbed by a different child than the actor and may have been edited into the television version to imply that Niles had not gotten away with murder, but was waiting to be taken to a mental health care facility. All subsequent media releases and television broadcasts omit this voiceover in favor of the original theatrical ending. Muir, John Kenneth (2007). Horror Films of the 1970s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p.220. ISBN 978-0-786-49156-8. This book is about two twin boys. Niles and Holland. They are children. It takes place in the country in New England.