Rating: 
Summary: Skip the book, see the movie.
Review: I saw the movie first, and couldn't wait to get my hands on this book. Kings books always seem to translate very well to movies, but I have always loved the books more because of King's meticulous attention to creating a character through subtext. His characters cannot always be conveyed on screen with the same sense of three-dimensionality that he creates in the written word. So what a disappointment to find the shallow and lifeless characters who populate this book. I slogged through it, always hoping that the next page I would understand who these people were, and why the did the things they did. The plot was jointed, the tone of the story has awkward shifts and transitions. I got the sense that this book was a hurry-it-to-the editor effort. Too bad--I wouldn't recommend this one, but it won't make me skip the next King novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Not King's Best or Worst, Just not HORROR, which I miss alot
Review: I listened to this collection of Novelettes by Stephen King in the audio format. William Hurt is not one of my favorite readers but his droning voice suited the stories he narrated. King's voice is more pleasant than Hurt's to listen to (a TOTALLY scary thought) but...My biggest complaint about most recent King offerings is "Where's the Horror?" While I am a product of the "Vietnam" generation (and the war was a Horror in and of itself), I don't find it (the war) to be the cause of my own personal problems. It is simply a fact of my life. The "Magic" element within the story makes it slightly more interesting than it would have been without it, but that slight bit of magic doesn't really "save" the story. All-in-All, I was satisfied with the story, just disappointed that it was written by Stephen King and not some lesser author.
Rating: 
Summary: very good
Review: I enjoyed this book. It was a little too sprawling, but the stories were quite engrossing and there were many nifty threads that connected them all together. You have to work a bit to get there. but when you do, it is worth it.
Rating:
Summary: The movie is better
Review: At a time when the vanishing World War II generation is paid tribute through books and films, HEARTS IN ATLANTIS is Stephen King's homage to his (and mine), the Vietnam generation. HEARTS is a series of stories that take place, respectively, in 1960, 1966, 1983, and two in 1999. All are loosely connected through characters we meet in the first, 11-year old Bobby Garfield and his best pals Sully-John and Carol, and one from the group of slightly older boys who torment them, Willie Shearman. Each of the storylines otherwise stands alone, more or less. In 1960, Bobby, a fatherless boy living with an uncaring mother, becomes attached to the world-wise Ted, an old man renting the rooms upstairs who is being hunted by sinister "low men in yellow coats". In 1966, new character Pete is on the verge of flunking out of the university because of his preoccupation with an addictive card game. More important to the book's overall plot, he falls in love with a fellow student, Carol from Story One, and through her discovers the anti-Vietnam peace movement. In 1983, Willie Shearman, a Vietnam veteran, continues to pay a bizarre penance for past sins, chief of which, apparently, was the wrong he did Carol as a boy. In 1999, emotionally and physically scarred Vietnam vet Sully-John remembers his time "in the green". Also in 1999, Carol and Bobby stumble across each other after leading separate lives for almost 40 years. The threads between all five plots are Carol and a beat-up old baseball glove once belonging to Bobby. This is not one of King's more lucid works. Indeed, the Willie Shearman episode of 1983 needed much more explaining. (My reaction to it was just short of "Huh?!") However, a mediocre book by King is a gem by other standards, so it's impossible not to recommend it on some level. The point the author is trying to make, I think, is that the memories from our formative years, however deformed by succeeding events - in this case the Vietnam conflict - stay with us as powerful emotional catalysts, and perhaps as crippling psychological scars, even unto our twilight years and old age. The film version of HEARTS IN ATANTIS, based almost solely on the first chapter dealing with the events of 1960, was magical in its use of visual and aural images to evoke that period in the mid-twentieth century when those in childhood, and middle-class America as a whole, were on the verge of losing their innocence. Because both I and the fictional Bobby turned eleven in that year, I could relate. And, I think the book will stir up memories in anyone of my generation, whether he/she fought in Southeast Asia or demonstrated at home. Not a great book, but worth a read. Definitely see the movie for a more intense burst of the book's flavor.
Rating:
Summary: Three Story Pawned Off As One
Review: Very disappointing. This is really a book of 3 stories VERY loosely linked togather by one or two overlapping characters. The first part of the book is very good and typical King (though the movie did not do it justice!) Unfortunately, the second part is about an entirely new character with a secondary character from the first part as a secondary character in the second part. The third part was about mostly about another secondary character from the first part of the book and some almost unrelated new characters. Confusing? It is as if King had 3 short stories in mind but wanted to write a lengthy book. I felt somewhat deceived. He does, rather weakly, try to tie the parts togather at the very end. Net, net. Borrow the book and read the first part and the last several pages! Sorry to be so hard on a writer I usually love.. but not this time!
Rating: 
Summary: Stephen King still has it
Review: With Hearts in Atlantis, Stephen king takes a step towards a more theme based type storytelling. Whether it is the story or the theme that is the focus of a Stephen King novel, Stephen King always delivers. Of the 5 stories, I found the cover story "Hearts in Atlantis" to be the best. It tells the story of how college students go from conservative and clean cut kids to war protesting liberal hippies. This book will make you laugh and cry. Most people seem to like "Low Men in Yellow Coats", but that was acutally my least favorite. King should have been a bit more descriptive on what the Low Men actually wanted and who they were. But overall, this collection was great. You will find yourself asking yourself whether the Vietnam war was justified. This book really makes you think about the morality of war and whether or not it is worth it, and also the crippling effect that war can have on peoples lives. Hearts In Atlantis will also answer some of the questions you might have about The Dark Tower Series. So read this book. I did, and it was worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing for a Stephen King Book....
Review: I enjoy reading Stephen King and was very pleased to receive this book as a gift for my birthday. Right away I bonded with the main character Bobby and then Ted, the old man who befriends him. What a delightful story full of imagination with a little bit of real life thrown in this was. I was very disappointed to get 322 pages into Bobby's "adventurous" life only to be taken away to a college where all the guy (who was not related to Bobby but knew Carol) did was play cards for 300 pages! I never read the back of the book first so I had no idea this was three stories in one. The third short story took us back to a grown up Bobby but it just wasn't enough to draw me back into the book and I can't get over how poorly it ended. Buy it for the first story if you enjoy Kings books and skip the second chapter unless you're still in college and can possibly relate to whatever is happening for those 300 pages.
Rating:
Summary: Two great stories, three passables.
Review: This collection of five linked stories that try to chart the birth, growth, and death of the sixties hulla-baloo starts off strongly with two great tales. Low Men in Yellow Coats is not only a parallel chapter in the long running Dark Tower series, one that drops hints and clues about the coming battle to right the incorrect turn the world has made, but it is also a cynical turn on King's earlier coming of age tale The Body. The second tale, Hearts in Atlantis, is another coming of age story set in college, and is a beautiful yarn of how King's generation woke up, tried to change the world, and then 'blew it', choosing instead to live the good life while striking a pose. Both tales feature King at his most emotionally powerful but sadly feature weak endings, not surprising considering that each tale is meant to be a part of a larger patchwork narrative. The remaining three tales, while well written, are poorly focused and come nowhere near the emotional wallop of either Low Men or Hearts in Atlantis. As the tales converge and close with a blurry whimper instead of a focused bang, the over all vision of the patchwork is lost. But despite the book's many weaknesses I still feel that the first two remain required reading for King fans.
Rating:
Summary: Stephen King's Best Book, That isn't Horror.
Review: In my opinion I think this may be the best book Stephen King has written, I'm not a big fan of the horror side, but I read his horror books for the work, not the blood and guts that most of his fans read for, I enjoyed this book from the first page to the last, I had listened to this on Audiobook, William Hurt Reads The First Story Low Men In Yellow Coats, The 4th Story Why Were In Vietnam and the 5th Story Heavenly Shades & Nights Are Falling, Stephen King reads the 2nd Story Hearts In Atlantis and the 3rd Story Blind Willie, In the First Story Low Men In Yellow Coats, set in 1960, we are introduced to Bobby Garfield a Kid living in Harwich, Conneticut, his friends Sully-John aka John Sullivan and Carol Gerber, he lives with his mother Liz Garfield. He befriends a man who moves into his apartment complex, his name is Ted Brautigan. Throughout the story he experiences different adventures.
The 2nd story Hearts In Atlantis, set in 1966, is told through the eyes of a student in a college his name is Pete and his friend Skip, he tells the adventures of College, he also befriends Carol Gerber, gets hooked on cards, and stops, this part starts to influence the rest of the book on the Vietnam War.
The 3rd Story Blind Willie, set in 1983, is about Willie Shearman, who had a part in The 1st Story, it will tell you about him and what goes on in a day lived by Will Shearman.
The 4th Story Why Were in Vietnam, set in 1999, is about Sully-John, and how he survived the Vietnam War.
The 5th Story Heavenly Shades Of Night Are Falling, Set in 1999, Bobby Garfield returns to Harwich for a funeral, a place which will now tell Bobby if love is waiting for him, and the memories of the summer of 1960.
Overall this book is simply sensational, it was extremely sad at the end, I recommend you Buy it. Grade: A+
Rating:
Summary: Great story, it got me back into reading books again.
Review: I had been out of the reading loop for quite some time. After seeing the film "Hearts in Atlantis," I was eager to read the book, even though the movie was based only on the first story, that first story porved to be the jumping off point for many of the young characters, as they entered into Vietnam, into the field, those who protested against it, and some having to live with painful memories. The first story deals with young Bobby Garfield and his mom, who constantly complains to Bobby that money is scarce for them (even though almost weekly she brings home brand new dresses from department stores). One day, a lodger in the floor above them moves in, and Bobby meets Ted Brautigan, a strange old man who helps Bobby see the bright side to the gift his mom got him for his birthday (all he got was an Adult Library card, allowing him to check out the more serious fiction). Ted helps bobby to get interested in reading, and helps Bobby and his friends Carol Gerber and Sully-John. But Ted is not all that he seems, as he is seemingly on the run from some suspicious characters whom he refers to as "Low-men," people who wear yellow coats and drive rather scary and flashy automobiles. Ted sets the story and possibly shapes Bobby's life for the future. The second story deals with several University students some years after the first story. One student dates Carol Gerber, but the young man is in a school where his grades are important, and in that sense, he gets hooked into playing a card game called "Hearts." The story also sets up the campus thoughts and reactions to the war. The third deals with another person from Bobby's young life, this time in the 1980's, as the man comes to grips with the aftermath of Vietnam and a strange "sense of duty." The 4th story deals with Sully-John, a man who became quite distant from bobby after that summer that Ted Brautigan showed up, now Sully-is getting older, noticing the war veterans that he and his friends have become, and wonders about change. The 5th story deals with Bobby, as revelations and such convince him to return to the place where it all began, but of all the people, Bobby never was quite as touched by the war as his friends were. The stories and all have some depth, but can wander at times. The main story was quite involving, but several took some time to get through. It's not the best read, but it made me finish it in about a week, which is usually a good sign of a book if it can make me spend a lot of time reading.
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