this book is amazing. has so many emotional moments with the light hearted wholesome and the dark and depressing moments that are written beautiful and the over all mysteriory was really cool and fascinating. lots of unique characters that were likeable and had some quirky charms that reminds me of something from Twin Peaks. there was also a few funny parts to that fit well with the story and time period.

i always heard amazing things about this book from many and i can agree with them that it did not disappoint.even though this is my first Robert McCammon i can safely say this is a good starting point and is easy to recommend to most who love the coming of age tale of growing up in a small town in the south in the early 60's ( )

It would be easy to lose interest in a long, rambly story that doesn’t seem to advance any sort of plot or action for the first half, but Boy’s Life is full of paragraphs and observations that delighted me for the way they evoked a time or place or childhood emotion. Then the plot roared to life and I started turning pages to find out what next, what next, what next, and forgetting to stop and savor the prose.

Maybe a bike, once discarded, pines away year after year for the first hand that steered it, and as it grows old it dreams, in its bike way, of the young roads. It was never really mine, then; it traveled with me, but its pedals and handlebars held the memory of another master. Maybe, on that rainy Wednesday, it killed itself because it knew I yearned for a bike built for me and me alone. Maybe. All I knew for sure at that moment was that I had to walk the rest of the way home, and I couldn’t drag the carcass with me.

And:
They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end. I believed at that moment in time that I had found the grave of the bicycles, where the carcasses flake away year after year under rain and baking sun, long after the spirits of their wandering lives have gone. In some places on that huge pile the bicycles had melted away until they resembled nothing more than red and copper leaves waiting to be burned on an autumn afternoon. In some places shattered headlights poked up, sightless but defiant, in a dead way. Warped handlebars still held rubber grips, and from some of the grips dangled strips of colored vinyl like faded flames. I had a vision of all these bikes, vibrant in their new paint, with new tires and new pedals and chains that snuggled up to their sprockets in beds of clean new grease. It made me sad, in a way I couldn’t understand, because I saw how there is an end to all things, no matter how much we want to hold on to them.

And:
My heart was a frog leaping out of murky water in to clear sunlight. I said, “Thanks!” and I ran for the door. Before I got out, though, I looked back at Mrs. Neville. She sat at a desk with no papers on it that needed grading, no books holding lessons that needed to be taught. The only thing on her desk, besides her blotter and her pencil sharpener that would do no more chewing for a while, was a red apple Paula Erskine had brought her. I saw Mrs. Neville, framed in a spill of sunlight, reach for the apple and pick it up as if in slow motion. Then Mrs. Neville stared out at the room of empty desks, carved with the initials of generations who had passed through this place like a tide rolling into the future. Mrs. Neville suddenly looked awfully old.

And:
This is the way the world spins: people want to believe the best, but they’re always ready to fear the worst. I imagine you could take the most innocent song ever written and hear the devil speaking in it, if that’s what your mind told you to listen for. Songs that say something about the world and about the people in it – people who are fraught with sins and complications just like the best of us – can be especially cursed, because to some folks truth is a hurtful thing. I sat in that church and heard the reverend rage and holler. I saw his face redden and his eyes gleam and the spittle spray from his mouth. I saw that he was a terrified man, and he was stoking the hot coals of terror in his congregation. He skipped the needle around, playing more snippets backward that to me sounded like gibberish but to him held satanic messages. It occurred to me that he must’ve spent an awfully long time huddled over that record player, scratching the needle back and forth in search of an evil thought.

And: more. So much more.
( )

Wow! Blown away!

I'm a huge fan of McCammon, so it's with great shame that I admit I had never read this book.....I've read almost everything else he has written.....not sure why I hadn't read it yet.....coming of age stories are among my favorite reads.

Being born and raised in Alabama myself, I deeply appreciate that McCammon is from AL and has chosen to set this book in his home State. I appreciated the Bama and Auburn football references immensely....having grown up in a football immersed family myself. The entire book is nostalgic. I was born in the late 70s, but after reading this I feel like I've lived in AL in the 60s and I've walked the streets of Zephyr. McCammons writing puts you there in a way that few writers can....a feeling of realism that few can capture.

This story holds ranks with Swan song and The stand.....with a little Stand by me and Catcher in the rye thrown in. Its one of those long novels that feels not long enough, you're sad to see it end.....I wasn't ready to leave Cory, I wanted to follow his journey further.

I could continue to rave about this book all day...I could give storyline details.......but many reviewers have covered the basics , and the well deserved accolades have been given.....so I'll just end here by saying that everyone simply MUST read this book! It will definitely be added to my favorites book shelf for a reread! ( )

I really can't think of the last time I enjoyed reading 600 pages as much as I did this book. One of the most magical, lovely, exciting, terrifying, heartwarming books of my life. ( )

I loved this book and highly recommend it. ( )