Rating: 
Summary: The Movie was better
Review: I've 1/2-read many King books. Always got too boring to finish. The 2 I did finish were The Shining, and Insomnia. I don't believe in part-skipping, but I find myself skipping through books that I think suck, but I want to finish, maybe just so I can say "I read that book, it sucked". I can tell you I skipped a few parts of this book, partly because it was boring and irrelevant, and partly because I kept wanting to get to a part that was scary. I think this book starts out with a good idea. Haunted hotel that makes a guy go crazy. I liked how King developed Jack's character, however all that development meant diddly-squat at the end and that pissed me off. I thought the hedge animals were cool, until they almost killed someone. Its one thing for them to come to life and freak you out, but for them to actually kill you? Please. The ghosts they see around the hotel are stupid too. It seems like right when it was about to (supposed to) get scary, it got stupid. This could have been a great story, and I admit it did start out quite good, but somehow it got lost along the way. (The same thing happened in Insomnia, by the way. Since I haven't read any other Kings, I dont know if this is what he commonly does in his books - starts with a good idea and totally ruins it, gets lazy, does someting or another to make it suck) The ending did suck, but considering what had been done to the story up to that point, there was no other way for to end it really. The story became stupid, so the ending had to be stupid, makes sense. If you are scared VERY easily and you like WAY too much character development that suddenly means nothing (making you feel like you wasted your time reading all that crap), read this book. Or, like me, read this book just so you can rightfully say how much it SUCKED, and was STUPID.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fantastic Book for Anyone!
Review: I do not usually write rebuttal reviews but I will this time! I just read a very silly review saying that only conservetive Rebublicans and rednecks and white trash read Stephen King and like The Shining! Well, I'm not a Red neck, I'm not white trash, I Come from a very nice family and I'm a Democrat and not a Republican and most of the Stephen King fans I know are Democrats but what does politics have to do with this anyway! Anyway this book is fantastic and very thrilling and I recommend it to anyone, Democrats, Republicans etc.
Rating:
Summary: Stephen King at his best
Review: This is the best Stephen King book except for Firestarter.But this is definitely his most chilling.It's about Jack and Wendy Torrance and their five year old son who are winter caretakers at an isolated Colarado hotel resort.But the son has a special ability enabling him to read minds and project his own thoughts.It also gives him the scary ability to see things other people can't see.The hotel's cook tells him that the things he'll see won't do any harm,they're just pictures.But the cook was wrong.I'm not going to tell you the rest you'll have to read it yourself.It's sort of long but it won't take long to read.
Rating:
Summary: Read the book, get scared, and throw it in the freezer!
Review: I read The Shining last year after being sick of hearing how great it was. (Hey! It's just a book!) The last straw was when I saw a Friends episode in which Rachel finds a copy of The Shining in Joey's freezer because he was reading it and got scared. And he says that The Shining is the best book there is. Well I bought it and read it. I found out it really is THAT great! It'll have you looking over your shoulder for a while. Only Stephen King can make you scared of a stupid bathtub. *****
Rating:
Summary: The shining best book of 03 and 04
Review: I started reading The Shining in 03 and finished in 04 and I think it is the best book i have or will read in both years and im an avid reader.there are parts in the book where I couldn't put the book down and read for hours and hours even when i had school the next morning.The book was brilliantly put together. I had stopped reasing the book for a week and when I started reading again I remembered everything that had happened. If u are not a big fan of reading u will still love this book if you dont then put the book down no harm no foul. This is a great peice of literature and it earned its place on my shelf. this book a psychological thriller is the best Stephen King book ive read so far but pet cemetary is next. So readers beware u will be scared!!!
Rating:
Summary: its great
Review: great book awseome Bush is a great president for our country.
Rating: 
Summary: Moutaintop Hotel Massacre! it's OK
Review: Stephen King's books I've discovered over the past 20 years have always catered to the most common denominator(namely blue collar people) his horror novels are some of the only ones that have actually scared me, while annoying me at the same time and they almost always have the same recycled characters; writers, village idiots, neglected women or abused wives, lonely drifters, red necks, goofy villains,ect. His books usually start off pretty good with rich characterization and an intrigueing premise, but as you progress to the middle they start to get bogged down with too many plot twists and mind numbing descriptions, sometimes annoying dialogue, irritating protaganists always doing something illogical, by the time you reach the end of the story it really starts to fall apart, incondite dialogue, ridiculous reactions to dangerous situations, mountains of desriptions the size of the Himalayas, suddenly at the end the story it falls flat on it's face.....SSPPLLAAAAATTT!. This book is actually better than most of his later work, it suffers from none of these, like Carrie it's mercifully shorter and to the point, and yes it's scary. They made two film versions of The Shining , though Kubrick's version actually improved on the book slightly, by taking out alot of the silly sometimes cartoonish moments (like the bush animals in the maze coming to life , giving the kid a minimal role Thank GOD!, giving Jack an axe instead of a mallet) making it a darker, deeper, creepier, psychological thriller, too bad he forgot to put in more dialogue(a Kubrick trait) to flesh out the story! (prevents it from being a 5 star film). The new version is a WRETCHED train wreck avoid like the plague! horrible is too delicate a word to desribe it. Read This book, you might like it better than I did.
Rating:
Summary: The Best King Book. Period.
Review: King scares at his best in The Shining. The book starts off kind of slow explaining the past and why Jack, Wendy and Danny are going to live in the Overlook hotel all winter. But as soon as Jack trims the hedge animals you cannot put the book down. Literally! I'm not your usual reader, I spend at most 3 hours a week reading but while reading this book I was spending every evening reading for at least two hours! I urge...no I demand any King fan who hasn't read this to READ IT! And anyone who loves the horror genre to read this book too (especially if you think you can't be scared from a book). This is by far (IMO) Stephen King's best and scariest book. Period.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: Stephen King really outdid himself this time with my favorite book of all time. You fall for the characters almost immeadiately and you feel their pain and their happiness. I thought this book was extremely creepy and it toyed with my mind. Just when I thought that ghosts couldn't get you during the day I was soon watching around the corner and pushing open the shower curtains at a much faster speed than what most people are used to. If you saw THE SHINING with Jack Nicholson in it, be prepared for a shock because it is nothing like the movie at all. I truley think it was his best work and is a MUST read.
Rating:
Summary: I wish i never saw the movie.
Review: I read this book long after I saw the movie. I personally thought that the movie was pretty scary, but reading the book, you realize that Kubrik actually ruined the whole point of the story and turned it into his own thing he wished it to be.
If the movie had never been made, there is no way that you would know early on that Jack would go crazy. You would just think that some ghostly entity was stalking the family in a creepy hotel (after the part with the old ghost lady in bathtub: scariest part of the whole book).
The whole book builds up and gives off little foreshadows and hints at how the problem will be resolved, at how the book would end. The movie does not even have the same ending! In the book, you can tell at the end that King had the whole format of how it would play out and end all thought out in his head. The way it was crafted and carefully plotted reminded me a lot of M. Night Shamylan's film's (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs) and how every scene and peice from the story is vital for the outcome. If you saw the movie and liked it, it will only make the book ten times better.
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