One of the first reviews of ‘Gwendy’s Button Box’ can be found at SechrestThings.com. If you want to know what the box is all about, some answers to your questions can be found there.
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At the start of the novel, twelve year old Gwendy Peterson is gifted with a mysterious button box. Given to her by an equally mysterious stranger, Gwendy surmises that the box holds strange powers. For one thing, it dispenses extremely rare mint condition silver dollars at will, as well as tiny chocolates that will leave Gwendy satisfied enough to stop overeating. She’s been made fun of at school for her weight and has taken to running up Castle View’s “suicide steps” each day to shed a few pounds. The most daunting thing about the box, however, are the buttons it possesses. Not the kind of buttons you would sew onto a jacket, but the kind that you would push. (Or, maybe you wouldn’t.) There is a different colored button for each continent, plus a red button and a black one. The stranger who entrusts her with this gift tells Gwendy the red one is for “whatever she wants” and the black one is the most dangerous, as it is all encompassing. When Gwendy inquires what exactly the buttons do, the stranger poses to her: Why ask a question you already know the answer to?
Gwendy must decide for herself what she will do with the box, where she will hide it, and how she will use it. In her hands, she suspects she just might hold the fate of the world.
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This is the first story in quite some time to take place in Stephen King’s fictitious town of Castle Rock. In the timeline of the Stephen King universe, Gwendy’s story would take place right around the time Johnny Smith would be waking up from his coma in The Dead Zone. And yes indeed, there is an Easter egg or two for the hardest of hardcore King fans.
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Gwendy’s Button Box is a fast and fun collaboration, at many points showcasing the best qualities of both its authors. Stephen King and Richard Chizmar have styles unique unto themselves. Together, however, their combined techniques prove simply delightful.
Read the original review here