We meet the titular character Gwendy in Castle Rock, Maine, in the summer of 1974. She is 12 years old and has committed herself to climbing the Suicide Stairs-- which zig-zag up a cliffside-- every day in order to lose weight before the school year begins. On this particular day she meets a strange, but not dangerous man in black named Richard Farris.
Mr. Farris gifts Gwendy with a button box that has several buttons of different colors and two levers, one which dispenses a piece of chocolate, the other giving out a valuable silver dollar. He explains how powerful the box is, and what the buttons do, and insists that Gwendy must keep it safe. The rest of the novella follows Gwendy through young adulthood, as the box both blesses and curses the course of her life.
It ends up being both a dark fairy tale and a coming of age story. Gwendy begins to realize the weight of her responsibility early on, but it's only as she reaches full adulthood that she experiences the real price of the box. It's a classic "What if?" kind of story that will make you wonder what you would have done in Gwendy's shoes.
Overall I enjoyed the story and Gwendy herself, although there were moments where I felt like she lost a little bit of dimension to her character. Was that supposed to happen as an effect of the box? I'm not sure. But it's a fun experience, and will leave you wanting to know more about the box and where it came from.
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