PET SEMATARY

Rating:
Summary: Anyone thinking King writes pulp fiction hasn't read enough
Review: I have degrees in literature and am a professional writer, and proudly proclaim that Steven King is a genius.

I fully believe Steven King will be a mainstay of high-school and college English syllabi in years to come. Why?

1. He knows his craft. His writing paints a picture.

2. He takes his craft to a new level. (One-word chapters, italicized paranthetical thoughts interrupting the narrative.)

3. He doesn't talk down to his readers. He draws them in to his world.

4. He knows characterization. Every character comes alive, no matter how small his/her role is in the story. That's real life.

5. He knows marriage. His books are as much about relationships as they are about horror and fantasy.

6. He knows kids. Ellie Creed is just one example of a Steven King child who speaks like a child, acts like a child, reacts like a child.

7. His imagination is unsurpassed. I don't even need to elaborate on this one.

"Pet Sematary" is King's magnum opus. Anyone who thinks King writes beach-books and drugstore trash obviously hasn't read any King.

Rating:
Summary: Now what will he do.....
Review: Pet Sematary is an extremely descriptive book; it plays every scene that needs detail with the most that anyone's imagination could offer. King explains everything in small detail, but leaves just enough for your imagination to take over. He is a wonderful writer and can ensnare you into his writing within the first chapter. Though I wouldn't recommend this book for those that are faint of heart.
Louis Creed, doctor, husband, and father, moves to a new house. His first day there he has already met his neighbor and friend Jud. Jud takes them up a winding path up to the pet sematary and shows them some of the pet's gravestones. Upon returning from the sematary his daughter Ellie is having diificulties dealing with death. She doesn't want Church, their cat, to die. He explains to her that it's a natural part of life and happens to everyone at some point. Also adding that Church had quite a while in front of him, Louis didn't know how wrong he was. While Ellie, Gage(his son), and Rachel(his wife) were in Chicago fof Thanksgiving, Chruch got ran over. Jud took Louis to a sacred burial ground to bury the cat. The next day the cat returned, alive, but he isn't quite himself. Church become tipsy and seems to have lost his sense of gracefulness. He seems...dead. Now what will Louis choose when his 2 year old son, Gage, is killed?

Rating:
Summary: Insanely Enjoyable
Review: This book is very good. King is so good at descriping things I could of sworn I could actually smell the sickness of Rachel's ill sister. I could feel Church, the family cat, rubbing against my legs and the anxiety the powers of the Pet "Sematary" brought. This book will have you guessing all the way through. This is great King, but not if you aren't used to his stuff. Not for first time King readers. You guys go read "Carrie" or "Salem's Lot". Then read "The Stand" and by then you should be able to read Pet Sematary.

Rating:
Summary: Oz The Gweat And Tewwible
Review: Okay, okay, Pet Semetary is one awesome book. One of Stephen King's best works. I know thats what everybody says on every other book he's wriiten but i really mean it. The story can really spook the heck out of you, make you laugh, or cry.

The novel is about an M.D named Louis Creed who decides to work at the medical university in Bangor Maine. So he and his family pack up and move there from busy Chicago. There they find a great danger-- the roaring highway and those orinco semi trucks and they find a mysterious path that leads to a place called Pet Semetary. A place where animals that the road has taken are buried. What lies beyond the deadfall of the the place is an old Micmac Indian burial ground where the dead can rise... The story is mainley about Louis's obsession with the graveyard but I think that the story also tries to focus on the relationship between Louis Creed and his 80 something year old neighbor Jud Crandall.

If you do decide to read the book I strongly suggest that you not watch the movie first. It is not very good and will ruin alot of the key parts of the novel for you. The movie is short and gets into too muck sub plots of the novel and lacks characterization.

The novel takes it's time in getting down to business. (it's over four hundred pages long.) That leaves alot of room for you to fall in love, (or hate) some of the characters.

It is filled with death, love, ressurection, humor, and so on. I reccomend everyone read it.

Rating:
Summary: Hey, Ho! Lets Go!
Review: I'm not a rabid King fan, although I do enjoy the occasional dabble into his worlds. So far I'd have to say that this book leaves everything behind in it's dust.

The story is that of the Creeds, who move to a little town- most likely in Maine, perhaps?- looking for a new beginning. They meet the neighbours, the Crandalls, and get aqqauinted with their home, including a mysterious trail that leads up into the forest, to a mysterious 'Sematary'...

I won't lie to you. The book made me feel bad. I don't usually feel this way after books I enjoyed, which really speaks for the skill involved in writing it.

There are several things that will always stand out in my mind when I recall Pet Sematary.

1)I liked Louis Creed's reactions, his mental comments, etc. They really show how, especially towards the end, his sanity is being sucked down the drain. His constant flashback's to important phrases, such as, "Sometimes dead is better" give a very creepy feeling.

2)The whole storyline concerning Lou's wife's childhood, and
'Oz the Gweat and Tewwible' were the most disturbing,and satisfying, parts of the book.

3) Queen of Spades: "Darling" Need I say more?

I strongly reccomend this book to anyone who doesn't like scary stories, because you need to be cured. You might as well go for the gold.

Rating:
Summary: King's somber tale of death and resurrection...
Review: Looking back on reading Pet Sematary, I am a bit perplexed as to how to write a review for it. Do I praise it for being a masterful achievement in the writing of pure horror, or do I say how it left me feeling depressed and a bit sick? The characters are so well developed, described, and depicted, that the horrors that are unleashed upon them in the second half of the book left me with a feeling of unspeakable dread.

Yes, it is scary. No question about it, and I decided in the end my feelings only reinforced my appreciation for Stephen King as an author, after all, he made the characters so realistic and human - read flawed - that they became like friends. Friends that have just about the worst luck in the world.

But enough about my own personal reservations about the novel. Stephen King is famous because he has a deep understanding of human nature and, more importantly for a horror writer, human fears. This is a very human novel, despite the title referring to animals (By the way, in case you're wondering, it's spelled "PET SEMATARY" instead of "PET CEMETARY" because the cemetary was founded by a group of young children with poor spelling).

The story concerns the Creeds, a family of four, moving into a small town with a dark secret. Dr. Louis Creed, the father of the family, gets a job as a doctor of medicine at the local college, where he recieves a grim message from a dying patient. This event signals the beginning of a gruesome chain of seemingly unrelated accidents which point straight to a certain cemetary. Not the Pet Sematary of the title, but a much more frightening annex with unspeakably evil power.

I cannot remember a King novel as shattering or as disturbing as Pet Sematary. The Shining, which in my own humble opinion is King's best work, was definitely frightening, but came to a relatively tidy conclusion. Pet Sematary ends on the kind of bizarre, twisted "happy" ending which is similar to a doctor saying that you'll be doing just fine after they amputate your arms and legs. The conclusion is nasty, unexpected, and a little unsatisfying.

But once again, these are minor quibbles for such a great, solid novel. If you have read a few King novels already and enjoyed them, I recommend you pick up a copy of this fright fest today!

Rating:
Summary: One of the best horror novels ever.
Review: Every once in a while a book comes along that sets itself apart in its particular genre. Pet Sematary is such a book.

In my estimation what makes this story so frightening is that it touches on two elements. First, it is a very human story. By that I mean it touches on something all of us have can relate to: family, sickness, secrets and death. The relationships are complex and believable. There is something for everyone to point to whether it is father-daughter, father-son, husband-wife or the relationship of friendship between men. These relationships give the reader a connection with the characters and give the story a soul.

The second element combines the spirituality and slow descent into insanity that seem to permeate every corner of this story. This novel deals with larger issues of loss, mourning, fears, human frailty (emotionally), the frailty of life, the afterlife and obsession.

King takes these two elements and weaves them together in a tale that would seem utterly implausable and yet I was engrossed from the first page and I never lost my willing suspension of disbelief. Add to all this the human knowledge that death is supposed to be final and one can't help but be naturally thrown off balance when spirits inhabiting the bodies of the dead once again roam the earth. This is a monumental work of horror that is unlikely to be matched for many years to come, if ever.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Read...Creepy
Review: Let me just say...I am not an avid reader...I go through little spurts where I will read a lot and then I won't read a book for months. Right now I am in my Stephen King spurt. I just finished reading Pet Sematary and loved it. Very difficult to put down. The whole idea of the book is creepy...just the freakin' name "Pet Sematary" makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. King has an uncanny gift of taking you out of your world and putting you into his. The house....the path in the woods...the deadfall....you feel like you are there. King makes you ask yourself the question "What would you do in this situation??" Anyway...if you haven't read it...please do so -- you won't be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: Almost too horrible
Review: I have read practically all of Stephen King's books and i have found this book to be rather depressing, to be honest. It does however stand out from many others he has written. Take something like 'Hearts in Atlantis' and imagine the exact opposite of it. This is pure horror. No arguments. I never knew Stephen King was capable of stuff like this. But is it scary? Not for me. It hardly haunts my dreams. It's just a extended version of the old story 'The Monkey's Paw'. To call it realistic is flattering. But if you've just watched 'Gigli' or some other romantic comedy, this is the antidote. Not that I've watched 'Gigli'!
This is not one for the family. If you like death, then you'll like this. But if you like to be entertained, don't. Sometimes horror isn't scary, just horrible.

Rating:
Summary: A great book in so many ways.
Review: I decided to read this book after finishing the Dead Zone (also by King). I thought I might be dissapointed in Pet Sematary because in my mind nothing could compare to the Dead Zone--no way. Pet Sematary pulled me in and kept me fascinated until the last page, literally.

There is something really frightening about this story. I have to say, I've never really been scared by a movie or book before, but Pet Sematary really creeped me out. It brought alive a place in my mind I would never want to enter in real life. What makes this story so scary (and sad) is the realism with which King writes; If you were in a terrible situation and you could reverse it, would you be willing to withstand the consequences...whatever they may be? There are so many levels to this book. Its powerful, intelligent and full of emotion.
I can see why King says he was horrified by what he'd written when he finished Pet Sematary.

Go read it!!