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The Shining

The Shining

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Superb!
Review: Usually, I avoid giving popular authors shining reviews (pun intended) unless their work REALLY deserves it. I figure, what the heck- they have enough people flocking around them. They could use a good criticism. So, with this in mind, I took an excursion into the dark and eerie world of five-year-old Daniel Torrence in King's "The Shining". And instead of coming away full of tips on how he could better his writing, I find myself amazed by it.

King is, as so many reviews before me have plainly stated, a true master of the horror genre, and "The Shining" stands right up there among the best in horrific fiction. It's about a young boy who posesses a sort of telepathic power; a clairvoyence called "The Shining". he can read minds (although not always understand what he is reading) and see into the future with the aid of an imaginary friend named Tony. When Danny's father accepts an offer to be a hotel caretaker for the famous Overlook hotel in the Colorado rockies, Danny is catapulted into a world of terror. For, it seems, the Overlook has it's own nasty history and is more than eager to put Danny and his family in it's macabre lexicon.

Read this book. It is a true gem.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: REDRUM, REDRUM, REDRUM....
Review: The Shining is a story about a recovering alcoholic author named Jack Torrance who is chosen as the new winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel, a hotel with a dark history. Jack's wife, Wendy Torrance, and his son, Danny Torrance, come along with him. Danny has a power to see things which could possibly occur in the future. This power is referred to as "the shining". The shining also involves mind-reading. Danny meets a man named Hallorran who tells him he has the shining also, and if there's any trouble, call him and he'll come and rescue them. The snow falls during the winter, isolating the Torrances. The isolation starts to get to Jack, along with the horrific, suicidal, homocidal, ex-caretaker, Delbert Grady. Can this small and dysunctional family survive the unspeakable evils of the Overlook? Will Danny's friend Hallorran be able to save them, or will REDRUM destroy him? Find out the answers by reading this magnificent novel, packed with suspense, horror, and intriguing characters. And, by the way, for you fans of the original Stanley Kubrick film "The Shining", this book is totally different, but in some ways the same. It's fun to picture Jack in the book like Jack Nicholoson. It makes it even more eerie and interesting. I recommend this for fans of pure horror and suspense!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Amazing amazing amazing
Review: Before I read this book I was sure that a book could not be scary. I thought only movies could keep you up at night. But this book scared the crap out of me. This book is excellent if you haven't read any King before, despite what King "experts" say. You feel every emotion of the character. You feel the innocence of Danny, the confusion of Wendy, and most mindblowing, the insanity and desperation of Jack. Don't let either of those godforsaken movies mistake you, this is the ULTIMATE haunted house tale. Redrum!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Truly Scarey
Review: This book is so good, I have read it three times. Stephen King, the undisputed master of horror and suspense does not leave any dissapointment with this book. You will read it, be scared, and read it again. What is interesting is that so many people have only seen the Jack Nicholson/Stanley Kubrick movie version, which is good, but this book does so much more.

The setting, a remote resort. The characters, a father, a mother, and a young son. These characters are left to tend to a large hotel during the winter season and make sure things are fine when the hotel opens up the following spring for business. Remote and isolated, the hotel becomes a prison for the father, and he begins to torment his wife. All this happens while the young son, Danny, starts seeing and speaking to ghosts.

The hotel figuratively and literally starts to close in on the Torrence family. That is when all hell breaks loose. For the rest of the story, I would suggest reading this book, with a warning; expect to be scared.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of King's Scariest Books (That I Have Read)
Review: I had just finished The Green Mile, and I wanted more Stephen King. Also I had the DVD of The Shining, and wanted to read it before watching the movie. The Shining is about a little boy with a gift of being able to know what people are thinking about, and see what the future might hold. His dad just got fired from being a teacher, and lands a job as caretaker of a Rocky Mountain hotel for the winter. He, his wife, and the little boy (his son) spend the winter trapped in a haunted hotel while slowly going insane. This book is very good. The way that Stephen King gets into each different character's thoughts and makes them seem so real. Sure some may say he spends too much time on developing characters and past events that would cause relations to be the way they are. I think it is brilliant. Since King lets the reader know what is going on in every character's head the scary parts are a ton better. I can't explain anymore without ruining the book. I read this book about four months ago and can't remember a lot. And the parts I do remember, if I were to explain them here, would ruin the book for you. All I can say is definitely read the book before watching the movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Come play withus danny
Review: This book is excellent. Its so unlike his other work ,It builds up slowly to the good part and then, some of the freakiest things start happning. I wont spoil this for you but you have to read this book. Definutly one of stephen kings finest novels. (apart from maybe the dark half uncut).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: They're just scary pictures in a book
Review: I saw the movie first, the Kubrick film with Jack Nicholson, and I thought that one was spectacular. But I am very serious when I say that the book is even better. Having read the original, terrying words straight from the pen of Stephen King, it almost makes me mad that Kubrick treated the characters so hollowly in his movie. In the movie, Jack Torrance is a man insane. In the book, Jack Torrance is a man fighting against the insanity. Wow! The characters are so real and handled so carefully, that being trapped inside the Overlook is no longer just a freaky experience. You run along with them, filled with dread, from all the horrible personifications of evil inside the hotel's awful walls. There were several times where I actually dropped the book and was too scared to pick it back up. Intellectually, you know it's not real. It's just a bunch of letters and words grouped together on pages. Still, whenever I go into the bathroom late at night, I have to pull back the shower curtain just to make sure.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THIS BOOK RULES!!!(roque...stroke...roque...stroke...REDRUM)
Review: This is a great book. I literally couldn't put it down! My parents had to pull the book away when dinner was ready!It was creepy and eerie and awesome! Read it now...King is incredibly descriptive in his works, and while I was reading this I felt as though I was there in the Overlook, and of course feeling everyone's emotions because King has cut them out and splayed them across a mental field so that we may delve into the very minds and thoughts of an alchoholic, depressed father on the verge of insanity, a scared-to-death , worried and concerned mother/wife, and a fragile young boy with extraordinary powers. The description of room 217(why was it 237 in the movie???) chilled me to the point that I checked behind the shower curtain whenever I went into the bathroom. Definetely among my most favorite books. Chilling and captivating. If you haven't read this book, no matter what type of novel you are a fan of, then you don't know what you are missing. ***** stars definetely! (REDRUM) (roque...stroke...roque...stroke...REDRUM) (Danny!Come here and take your medicine!) --ShineOn195,age 14,(with The Shining power)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Well written, but overrated ... and boring
Review: I don't really get why people think this book is so scary because it really is not. I had to keep taking breaks and found myself rushing at the end because I was happily almost finished. In a few sentences, "The Shining" is about this boy, Danny, who has telepathic powers. Jack, his dad, takes this job as a winter custodian at a haunted Hotel, the Overlook, and he, his wife, Wendy, and son are going to live there for the season. Then strange, NOT scary things, start happening.

I read this book because:
1) My friend said it was scary and I haven't read a scary book in a LONG time.
2) I wanted to read the book before seeing Stanley Kubrick's movie.
And now after reading the book:
1) I'm no longer friends with the person that recommended this (just kidding).
2) I just watched the movie and it was NOTHING like the book, which was probably a good thing. Kubricks version was SO much more satisfying as a horror movie than King's so-called horror novel (and from what I've read King hated the film, pfff!).

I didn't HATE this book, thus the three stars. But I was very dissapointed. "Horror at an unflagging pace" was what one critic says. B.S.! I think as a horror novel this book fails because it's SLOW. The suspense is there, but not the punch. And nothing really got me. Too much time was spent on the hedge animals, which weren't scary to begin with. And I found it VERY hard to believe when one tried to KILL someone. The whole Masquerade ball was a borefest. "The elevator's moving! Oh god! Let's look inside. Party streamers and a wine glass! AHHHHHHH!" Give me a break. However, I have to admit that I did find the Woman in 217 and the Man dressed up as a Dog to be scary. So it wasn't a COMPLETE waste.

One thing I notice about King's books is they're very multi-layered. And you have to be pretty skilled to pull something like he does in here off without confusing the reader, so it proves he's a good writer, no doubting that. But the story behind the hotel was very boring. And the "unraveling" off the Overlook couldn't have been more uninteresting to me. And something I notice with King is that when he's "unraveling" the story BEHIND something, it's always found in a scrapbook. In "The Shining", Jack finds a white scrapbook with all these newspaper articles following the history and secret of the hotel. And in "Misery", another book by King, the story behind Annie is "revealed" through, guess what!, a SCRAPBOOK WITH NEWSPAPER ARTICLES IN THEM. Which NOW, leads me to how SIMILAR "Misery" is to "The Shining". Both about WRITERS trapped in a HOUSE/HOTEL in the WINTER. And if I were to tell you which of those to read it would definitely be "Misery", that's if you don't mind reading a boring book within a book (you'll get that once you read "Misery".)

But enough with the King bashing because I have to give him kudos for making such a multi-layered character like Jack Torrance because he is EXTREMELY well written. He has a lot of stories that make you sympathize with him and you actually like Jack, until he starts trying to, you know, KILL HIS KID AND WIFE. However all that interesting backstory about his alcoholism, job, and father means NOTHING once we reach the end.

I don't want to go on or else I'm going to give away the ending and stuff, but if you want to read a horror novel that is devoid of horror than I would recommend this one. However, I'm sure King has scarier books in his repertoire than this.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Normally a big fan of Stephen King's story telling
Review: Something about Stephen King's style of story telling has always drawn me to his work - both the horror genre and otherwise. Although The Shining is one of the Stephen King classics that helped build his fan base, it just wasn't written in a voice that was true to the characters. Much of the story is told through the eyes of the telepathic 5-yr old, Danny. King failed to portray the language and thought processes of a child convincingly. The reader is forced to perceive Danny as an adult's interpretation of how a child would speak and think.


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