The Shining

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Summary: More about alcoholism than horror.
Review: This was one of the first Stephen King books I read, and I didn't understand why people found it so horrifying. Sure, there were some scary parts, but personally, I found Pet Semetary to be FAR scarier. Pet Semetary is one damn scary book. The Shining was an interesting, bizarre story, but I just didn't find it all that scary.

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Summary: Here's Johnny!!
Review: Have you ever read a book that was impossible to stop reading? I have and it was Stephen King's The Shining. The master of horror is good about writing books that you just can't put down. The novel is about a family that goes to take care of a huge hotel during the off-season. They are not informed that the hotel is ahunted until the last person is about to leave. The little boy of the family has the ability to "shine," which is the ability to see and communicate with the people that had been murdered in the hotel. The little boyalso had an imaginary friend by the name of Tony that played a big part later on in the book. The story contains the famous line "Redrum, Redrum, Redrum<"which is murder spelled backwards: aslo it is a sign of bad things to come. The storyline pulled me right in and i could not stop reading.
The suspense of The Shining is intense. King leaves you right on the edge of your seat. There is a chapter in the book where the little boy rides his big wheel past the room that the murders had taken place. He began to hear voices and saw apparitions at the end of the hall. He peddled as fast as his little legs would take him to get away. Even though he peddled as hard as he could, he could not seem to escape the voices. I wondered if the apparitions were actually going to kill him, but they had other things on their minds. I had to keep reading, that night I think I probably read eight to nine chapters. I could not put the book down to save my life.
The storyline and plot were absolutely astounding. King uses the most descriptive words and phrases. This book made me feel like I was the one there. I could picture the very scenes and conversations that were taking place. I love how King ends the chapters, he was able to keep me wandering what would happen next.
The story continues with horror and fear being bestowed into the family's lives away from home. Stephen King definitely knows how to throw you thorough many loops while reading his books. There are many parts to this book that shocked me and at times scared me a little. At one point in time the mother and son are out walking through a hedge maze that was builit behind the massive hotel. The mother turned around and all of a sudden her son was gone. She began screaming his name and going in circles. WEhen all of a sudden he just reappears. His untrustworthy imaginary friend talked him into leavign so they coul dgo have a talk. Yeah I know, it's kind of weird but King makes it so appealing that I felt like he had pulled me into his world. The father is trying to write a novel at the same time he is supposed to be performing keep-ip duties on the vast hotel. The spirits eventually start speaking to him, which ends up being the worst thing that could happen.
The novel seems to just gradually flow to the next sequence, rather that having a great deal of flashbacks, like some of King's other works. He keeps you in the present story. King told the story of the family at the very beginning and kept sequence after sequence going strong throughout the book. This novel was a very interesting tale of the supernatural and how it can possess other people. King has a very proficient mind to come up with some of the books that he has written. The Shining is a book that you need to just take a whole day to read and use a great deal of imagination to allow yourself to be drawn into his writings.
Hang inthere when you first start the book because it starts off rather slow. Once it hits about half way through the third chapter it starts to pick upand gets a little out of the ordinary. If someone is looking for a good book that you can not stop reading I suggest Stephen King's The Shining.

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Summary: The Shining Shines
Review: The novel I read was The Shining is about The Torrance family. The father of the family went up to the overlook hotel in Colorado. When he gets there he talks to the owner of the hotel about getting a job. He gets one as being the caretaker of the hotel over the winter while it is closed. Once he gets his job he goes back home to get his family. Then the whole family goes to the hotel and the head chef of the hotel shows them around the hotel. Once everyone is gone but the Torrance family things are going pretty good. But soon things become a little weird.
I recommend this book to people who like books that can scare you a little bit. I also recommend it to people between the ages of like 13 and 30. This was a great book and I plan on reading it again.
I liked this book because I like scary books and this was a good book to scare me. I also thought that it had a very well written plot to the story.
I give this book 5 out of 5 stars

Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: I read the Shining about 24 years ago when I was around 14 years old and It was a page turner that I couldn't put down and I remember reading it in my room while my parents were in the family room watching TV and at night when it was dark out and they were in bed and I was supposed to be asleep too and reallly getting spooked by all of the creepy events in this book but even though The Shining was a very scary book I loved it. It is about a dysfunctional family where the father is a recovering alcoholic going from their home in Vermont to live in a hotel in Colorado because the father Jack Torrance is going to be the new winter caretaker and he, his Wife Wendy and their Son Danny will be the only ones in the hotel or so they think but soon it becomes apparent that there is just something not right about the hotel and they aren't alone and besides learning That Danny has psychic abilities some bizarre events start happening and sinister forces are taking advantage of Jack's alchoholism and are pushing him over the edge of sanity and the sinister forces are after Danny. I highly recommend The Shining, it's my favorite Stephen King book and it is awesome. I used to have this book but after I finished reading it I traded it in at a used book store and I have always regretted doing that so I'm going to buy the book again and this time it's going to be a keeper! The 1980 Stanley Kubrick movie based on this book was very good but also very different and I also liked the mini-series remake which I liked even more than the Kubrick version that starred Jack Nicholson and I highly recommend fans of this book and that movie also watch the mini-series! I also want to write that I wish an audiobook recording had been made for the book, The Shining, an unabridged audiobook recording would be awesome!

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Summary: I reread this one every 5 years
Review: I was reading The Amityville Horror when I was a junior in high school. My mom was reading The Shining. I said to her, "this book is so scary." She replied, "wait until you read this one." I have been one of Mr. King's patient readers ever since.

I remember walking through the halls of school with this book in my face. I stayed up way into the night to finish this one. I heard every floor creak that wasn't there. The first few chapters take a while to get through. Once you get to "The Overlook," the fun begins. Dick Halloran was one of the most noble characters in literature. Jack Torrence shows us that at the end of the day, parental love triumphs over evil. I love, love, love this book.

After I read The Shining, I couldn't wait for the next product of Mr. King's fabulously warped gray matter to spew forth. I read every Stephen King book I could get my hands on. The Shining is and will always be my favorite. Everytime I pick it up to reread, I find a little something that I didn't catch the first few times.

I was so excited when I heard they were making a movie of my beloved Shining. I went to see it opening day. Was this the same story I read? Did Kubrick even read the book? There was a made for TV movie with Stephen Webber that was much better. Any time I hear someone say that they loved the movie, I ask them if they read the book. The answer is usually no. I think anyone who is a fan of the book may agree with me about the movie. The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By me are much better movie representations of Mr. King's work. How exciting when anyone says they are great movies to tell them that they began as short stories from our creepy hero.

For a good hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck read, this book is it.

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Summary: So Intense
Review: This book, unlike others that I have read, was more easy to read. I can not put the book down. I am still reading it but, Stephen King writes the book, as if the characters are right there with him in every day life. It is vey real as it is read and even when I think about it I can see myself in the middle of the Overlook hotel. Overall this book is way better than I had thought it was going to be. I recommend this book if you are looking for a good book that you will want to read just to keep busy. Trust me, you will only want to put it down when it gets too intense for you to read.

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Summary: The Original Shining!!!
Review: There is no wonder why stephen king is the master of the suspense and horror novel today. His first three books, Carrie, Salem's Lot and The Shining marked a breakthrough for horror novels on many levels.
Although The Shining was slower than what I anticipated , I found the book to be amazingly realistic. In the 70's Stephen King wrote a horror novel around the ordinary or not so ordinary lives of a family, King develops the characters by letting them reveal themselves through thought. Inbetween the dialogs you find what the characters are really thinking in parenthesis. You find out that the father is truely struggling with his self worth and alcholism, The mother is struggling with her love for her family and the distruss of the husband as well as her constant worrying about things in general. And finally ,but most importantly you find out about the sons conflict with his kinetic powers, while also trying to understand life through an child's mind.

All of this is what makes stephen king a master. Not the horror itself. By the end of the book, the reader truely cares about that family. In a lot of ways you feel sorry for the father who is, after all the things he's been through, haunted and possessed by the house. It makes the end more sad than horrific.

For those who saw the movie, don't expect the same story. as always it's different, but Kubrick's version is even more of an interpretation than most novel to movie transitions. Overall, in the movie you get the sense that this family is a little weird even before they get to the house. The father , in jack nicholson's portrayal, is frazzeled and wide eyed in the very beginning of the movie. The mother is this overly passive human being that in no way could've realistically survived the ending. And the boys portrayal is just flat out weird.
In the book the family is basically a normal family with realistic troubles that eventually turn into horrific ones.

The only negative point I have with the book, is that it appears that in King's earlier novels he struggles with the supernatural aspect of the story. Why didn't the ghost possess the boy instead? Especially if that's who they were after in the first place. Also the fact that both the mother and the cook gets beaten by a mallet and still stands and walks around defies the realistic aspect of the terror.

Overall it's a good novel about the struggles of an everyday family with a haunting twist.

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Summary: oh man, this book is insane
Review: I read this book outside over the summer in 80 degree weather, but despite the heat, I still had goosebumps and couldn't help but shivering. I couldn't put it down... I'd recommend it to anyone who loves a good psychological thriller.

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Summary: Wow. Just wow. And scary too.
Review: When I first picked up THE SHINING I had a feeling it would be good. I was 14, and just starting to get into the whole horror genre. Not the suspense, I had already gone through all the Crichtons. But horror, the things that evoke some of the most primitive emotions from within you.

It took me 6 months to finally finish THE SHINING. It started off with the first 100 pages being awesome. THen, with parts like "The Wasps Nest" and "Checking In" it bogs down and isn't as interesting. This is were I switched to other books, and truthfully I dropped SHINING for a while. 3 months, I believe. What brought me back? This was not the first book that I had gotten 300 pages into and dropped. I made a resolution to finish all the books that I had dropped in this way. Damn, I'm glad I did.

UNMASK!
THE SHINING gets good in Part 5: Matters of Life and Death. That is were Jack is completely turned by the spirits of the hotel and turned on Wendy and his son. Aweseome. The entire ending, you guess at who will die, and who will live, that is, if anyone lives. Jack is torured, cannot control himself and still tries to fight it. You don't know about him. Wendy risks her life (a bit stupidly at some times) to protect her son, and in doing so shows a strong bond that only this type of situation could bring about. ANd then there's Danny. Whether or not the boy will live is the biggest question. He isn't exactly innocent. And the hotel wants HIM. The last part of the book I read very quickly. And just right. The horror of this novel is momentous, the scariest thing I've ever read. I mean, THE SHINING is much much more than the average spook story. The charcters are so real they could show up at your house and knock on your door (or in some cases, knock it down with a mallet.) All in all, SHINING is reccommended to anyone with enough imagination to believe that such a thing is possible-a man turned against himself and his family.

Some scenes are touching, some funny, some boring, and some delve deeper into fear than any other author has ever done. This book is awesome. Anyone who likes thrillers or hell, ANYONE would like this book, I think.

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Summary: King at his Most Terrifying
Review: Imagine yourself closed in for the winter, you, your wife and young son the only occupants of a suddenly-empty resort hotel. A winter of solitude ahead...

Or so you thought... but the hotel's not all that empty when the supernatural are included on the guest list, and if you thought you had cabin fever after but a few months snowed-in, just think of what it would be like to have been a permanent resident!

The Shining is certainly one of Stephen King's most famous books (and the film one of the better adaptations thereof), and too is it among his finest and most frightening. Although the title refers to the psychic empathy of 5-year-old Danny, the true horror revolves around his father's seduction by the dark forces at work buried deep in the Overlook Hotel's history. King masterfully captures the psychological collapse of Danny's father while still maintaining the supernatural horror so intrinsic to his writings.

I enjoyed the film, but as is so often the case, the book is much better. Stephen King's The Shining is certainly among the author's best and scariest!