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The Shining (The Shining, #1)

Stephen King

Start date: October 1, 2016

Finish date: October 31, 2016

Discussion: Reading discussions

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Six of Crows
By Victoria · 2 posts · 9 views

last updated Oct 04, 2016 10:17AM

The Shining
By Victoria · 1 post · 11 views

last updated Oct 03, 2016 11:13AM

What Members Thought

Oct 08, 2016 Brooklyn Tayla rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: october-reads-2016, spooky-ish, rory-gilmore-book-list, my-own-book-collection

This is how a creepy book should be written. Oh my god, so freaking intense and spooky. Truthfully I was on the edge of my seat throughout and this book definitely made me look over my shoulder every now and again in paranoia. Definitely this will keep you awake at night so I wouldn't advise reading before bed; but oh boy this was crafted so perfectly, what a brilliant, intriguing, scary read. ...more

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Jul 21, 2013 claud. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, horror, supernatural-paranormal, 20th-century, its-not-you-its-me, adult-fiction

Aaaaand here's me breaking out of my Stephen King slump! The last time I read a King novel, wouldn't you know it, was on May 25, 2014, which was 364 days ago. I read The Mist, which, disappointingly, I rated 1 star because I just didn't like it.

Now The Shining is arguably King's most acclaimed novel, but I guess I'm just not one of those who belong in this book/movie franchise's cult following. In all honesty, this book was just okay. I no longer consider myself a blind worshiper of Stephen King Aaaaand here's me breaking out of my Stephen King slump! The last time I read a King novel, wouldn't you know it, was on May 25, 2014, which was 364 days ago. I read The Mist, which, disappointingly, I rated 1 star because I just didn't like it.

Now The Shining is arguably King's most acclaimed novel, but I guess I'm just not one of those who belong in this book/movie franchise's cult following. In all honesty, this book was just okay. I no longer consider myself a blind worshiper of Stephen King -- though he remains to be one of my favourite authors -- as I was from when I was 13 until I turned 16. I've grown and realized that Stephen King does have his flaws and that I shouldn't automatically rate his books 4 or 5 stars because it's him and that anything he writes is SO GODDAMN OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD AWESOME until they actually aren't (*ahem* Gerald's Game). Some of his books work on racist cliches like The Magical Negro, apparent here, in The Green Mile, The Stand, etc. Stephen King isn't perfect, so I'm going to stop setting standards for his books, i.e. "this was bad for a King novel," rather, I'm just going to judge them as completely separate books by themselves.

My issue with this book is: it's just so goddamn slow. I don't know what made me feel it, but it just felt so slow for me. I don't think it's because it's long per se (I've read the uncut edition of The Stand which is twice as long as this one, and it didn't feel slow to me at all), so maybe it was because of the actual story. I just didn't particularly care about Jack and his downward spiral into insanity (view spoiler), or even about him as a character. I didn't sympathize with him, and even though him being an abusive husband/father is still a bit of a blur (is it abuse if he occasionally spanks his son? Is it abuse if he has anger management issues and ACCIDENTALLY broke his son's arm? I mean he realizes that he loses his temper and apologizes, right? Did he actually ever hit Wendy? I can't even recall now), this issue did not make him interesting. The climax/takedown scene was a bit of a letdown. And to be honest with you, while I was reading the book, it wasn't 100% clear to me why Jack wanted to kill his family. I was a bit confused. Was it cabin fever? Was he actually going insane? Was he being possessed by Grady, the previous caretaker who murdered his own family in the hotel? Or was he being possessed by the hotel itself? I did end up figuring it out so it's all good, but the fact that it wasn't made clear enough to me was a flaw that this book had.

I'm going to read Doctor Sleep after this, which from the blurb seems more interesting to me, especially because it stars Danny, who is the only character I cared about in this novel aside from Hallorann, so hopefully I'll like it better than this one. ...more

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