The Playground

Product Information

Why you should buy this: If you’re a fan of Aron’s you probably have already snagged this and most likely have read it. If you’re new to extreme horror and want to see what it’s all about, this is an excellent place to dive in and discover how these novels will contain really well done plots with fantastic writing and some of the most horrific gore-filled scenes you’ll ever read. He’ll get it in school. Better to let him take a little shoving about now, when he’s three, so he’s prepared for it."

Ray Bradbury's work has been included in four Best American Short Story collections. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. In November 2000, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the 2000 National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City. Do you remember what it was like to be a kid? The fears of children are varied and this novelette by Ray Bradbury crystallizes a child and a parent’s fears in a tight, disturbing, trippy story that will send a shiver up your spine. I found this to be intriguing at first and then maddening as it became obvious what was going on. There were a lot of characters to get to know and different points of view in the narration to adjust to, but I never really related to any of them. The children needed supervising, that was obvious, and the parents kept on blithely getting drunk, forming illicit relationships, or just not paying attention. I couldn't understand why no one was taking care of them, asking them questions, being more observant. It mystified me how the truth could go unnoticed for so long. I like suspenseful thrillers and I might have quit reading had I not agreed to write a review and also having a compulsion to finish every book I start. I wanted to like it more than I did and the vague ending left me a bit unsettled.Este cuento corto me gustó más que Fahrenheit 451. Me sentí como si estuviera viendo un episodio de the twilight zone. La forma como está escrito es mucho mejor y el tema es muy interesante. After dinner, he took Jim for a brief walk while his sister was washing the dishes. They strolled past the Playground under the dim street lamps. It was a cooling September night, with the first dry spice of autumn in it. Next week, and the children would be raked in off the fields like so many leaves and set to burning in the schools, usingtheir fire and energy for more constructive purposes. But they would be here after school, ramming about, making projectiles of themselves, crashing and exploding, leaving wakes of misery behind every miniature war.

Eve is a wealthy stay at home mom to three children (though I wouldn’t say she is very attentive to her kids). They are left to roam the outdoors while she begins tutoring children with dyslexia at her sprawling estate. Grace sends her eleven year-old son for tutoring, and her daughter comes along as well. Of course, as Grace is the employed parent, her husband takes care of the drop-offs at Eve’s home, leaving plenty of space for her husband and Eve to get to know one another… Melissa is an interior designer who also brings her daughter for tutoring at Eve’s and is thrilled to learn her daughter is becoming friends with the other girls. Afterall, her daughter has always been a bit shy. Amidst the chaos and carnage, the children face unimaginable challenges and must confront their own fears and differences. Some struggle to put their selfishness aside and work together for the greater good, while others succumb to their darkest instincts. As they navigate the treacherous architecture of the playground, the children are forced to make difficult choices that will determine their fate. Underhill stood bemused by what he saw. Now the Playground was an immense iron industry whose sole product was pain, sadism and sorrow. If you watched half an hour there wasn’t a face in the entire enclosure that didn’t wince, cry, redden with anger, pale with fear, one moment or another. Really! Who said childhood was the best time of life? When in reality it was the most terrible, the most merciless era, the barbaric time when there were no police to protect you, only parents preoccupied with themselves and their taller world. No, if he had his way, he touched the cold fence with one hand, they’d nail a new sign here: TORQUEMADA’S GREEN.What a wild, crazy ride this book is! If you like Big Little Lies than this is definitely your type of read, but just know, it's a touch darker, but so addicting! splatterpunk is a genre with potential. unfortunately, there was no compelling story underneath the salacious gore of playground. the gore was decently written, but everything else was subpar.

A few too many characters and none of the adults are very good parents. They are all so totally wrapped up in themselves and their issues (sometimes rightfully so, but still) that they don't have a clue what is going on with their kids. And the kids were a bit too smart for their own good, I find it implausible that all of them were able to lie so easily and hide what was actually going on.The boy was smiling high in the misty air, and now, jostled by other yelling children, rushed shrieking down the slide. First off, I had no problem with the subject matter. I mean, the cover of this book shows you what you’re in for, so you can’t get upset about that. These characters are not the most likeable, I'll be honest, but they do have this power over you where you want to know all their secrets because they all have them. Each of these families may seem normal on the outside, but behind closed doors it is anything but. It is clear that they all have some form of dysfunction in their lives and perhaps that leads to the obliviousness when they are all together - leaving the children to get up to whatever games they want...games that aren't all that safe it turns out. I loved the title for this book, The Playground, because it is the sort of metaphor that worked on many levels. And no, it isn’t a physical playground the way you would think of it. But what sort of playground games do you think might arise in a book about three couples and their secrets and deception? What do kids get up to when left to their own devices? Who becomes the alpha?