Cujo

Rating:
Summary: Fairly creepy
Review: I like this book, though I'd rate it below average compared to King's other books. Cujo is one cool cat of a bad guy, and I think choosing a St. Bernard as the breed was an interesting and paradoxical choice by King, mainly because St. Bernard's are usually such nice dogs. I only give this book four stars because I think it's a little lean both on plot and character development; I just think the story was a bit slow at times and none of the characters were too memorable for me. Nonetheless, I think it's still a pretty good book. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

Rating:
Summary: A good and thought-out book!
Review: Cujo is so well-paced and scary that people tend to read it quickly, so they mostly remember the scene of the mother and son trapped in the hot Pinto and threatened by the rabid Cujo, forgetting the multifaceted story in which that scene is embedded. This is definitely a novel that rewards re-reading. When you read it again, you can pay more attention to the theme of country folk vs. city folk; the parallel marriage conflicts of the Cambers vs. the Trentons; the poignancy of the amiable St. Bernard (yes, the breed choice is just right) infected by a brain-destroying virus that makes it into a monster; and the way the "daylight burial" of the failed ad campaign is reflected in the sunlit Pinto that becomes a coffin. And how significant it is that this horror tale is not supernatural: it's as real as junk food, a failing marriage, a broken-down car, or a fatal virus.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing more Needed than a Comfy Couch
Review: I have read many of Stephen King's great works, and found Cujo the most thrilling. I read the entire book in one weekend. The intensity of the story kept me wide-awake as I flipped the pages. This horrific plot is about a giant St. Bernard whom gets infected with the virus known as rabies. He then starts to kill random people on impulse. Every page in this book has something interesting to it, unlike many other books that start out boring. The story is definately not for the timid.

Rating:
Summary: As with all other King novels...
Review: I would have given this book five stars if not for the unexplained bit about the monster in the closet. Was that what really possessed Cujo and not the rabies virus? Maybe King meant for the supernatural forces to play a more important role in the story, but changed his mind at the last minute... whatever it is, the part about the dank smell in the closet just doesn't fit right in the story. However, overall it's still a pretty darn good book, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who's looking for a juicy treat filled with annoyingly unexpected twists. Tip: Prepare your nerves, 'cos King really pushes poor Donna and Tad to their limits.

Rating:
Summary: Cujo
Review: This is a horror story about a huge Saint Bernard that runs amok.

Rating:
Summary: Bad Dog! Baaaaaaad Dog!!!
Review: This book has a certain personal relevance for me because we have a Cujo of our own - a tiny little Bijon Frise (if you're not familiar with the breed, think of a toy poodle, only one specifically designed for wimps). We selected him based on the unlikelihood of his devouring our newborn twins - although now that they have grown up a bit, our concerns tend more in the direction of the twins devouring him, particularly our son, who has exhibited exotic dietary preferences. I initially sought to give our pet a fitting name along the lines of Bitsy, Poofblossom, or Fluffmuffin. However I was overruled by my wife, who insisted on Cujo. You see Carlotta is far younger than me, and occasionally hatches little pranks that play on my relative ignorance of popular culture (true story: I almost consented to naming our slightly pudgy infant son "Cartman" after she persuaded me that this was the name of a faded but celebrated aristocratic family from Maine).

Anyhow, Cujo the book is another gripping tale from the venomous quill of Steven King. In it, a friendly Saint Bernard is bitten by a rabid bat. Soon enough he's demonstrably losing his mind (foaming at the mouth, biting without provocation, stalking small children, even campaigning on behalf of the local Democratic Party in one particularly unsettling scene). The finale is a dramatic showdown between Cujo and some family members that he corners in a parked car. As Cujo starts bashing the car's windshield in with his head, one is forced to think of one's relationship with one's own dog. I once thought that our Cujo was the devil's own seed due to his penchant for pilfering food intended for me and as well as his occasional gassy episodes. But on the balance I suppose we're doing just fine with the old boy.

Rating:
Summary: the eerie one
Review: I really like this book, I thought it was really eerie, and would probably give you the creeps. What I especially liked about it was how Stephen King used such good and sometimes confusing words. "The epiphany was lost in low-key, exasperated anger". page 88. What I also enjoyed about the book was how it wasn't always about one person, it was about many different people coming in site if cujo. Another thing I liked was the way he described all the people's emotions such as Tad's horror when cujo was in his bedroom closet or how he described cujo.the dialogue was good too but I felt that he put too many curse words in it.
I think the theme of the story is as long as there is good, something bad usually will happen. I don't agree with this though, I would say its the other way around and that whenever something bad happens, something good will also happen. Luckily this theme doesn't really relate to my life. I guess if it did relate to my life I would have to say whenever i go on vacation i have to go back to school after.
I definetely would recommend this book to others because of al the thrills and how eerie it was. It wasn't to scary, just weird, it may be scary to some people but it pretty much just gives you the creeps. Also the words he uses to describe cujo's encounters will probably be a hihglight of the story

Rating:
Summary: Mad Dogs And Americans
Review: I found CUJO to be a bit of a strange read. While I was expecting the horror story of the mad dog to be front and center, it actually takes quite a while before that becomes the focus. By the end, it's a pity that the standard horror story takes over, because I found myself much more interested in the characters that had been created here. It's on odd mixture of horror and human character studies that works well in some places, but jars oddly in others.

The Cujo of the title is the name of a dog gone bad - or going bad, as it takes a least a hundred and fifty pages before Cujo develops into a truly frightening creature. During the course of this opening, the dog becomes afflicted with rabies, a tangible and real threat. And while there are touches of the supernatural sprinkled through the story, the primary fear comes from our physical world. A huge, power and ferocious dog with a known disease is a very frightening concept. From a very early age, children are taught to fear and to run from any animal displaying the symptoms of that illness, and Stephen King is quite good at tapping into this specific fear.

On the other hand, while the Cujo sequences are indeed effective, they are not really anything special. But I was quite interested in the two families that were developed here. The human dimension really overshadowed most of what was going on with the dog's subplot, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Stephen King creates two families and carefully gives them several similarities, but gives them enough distinctions for us to see how each family member ticks. It's quite interesting to see the different ways that the two families react to troubles in marriage, raising children, and their attitudes to the rich vs. the poor. It does occasionally come across as heavy-handed, but there are enough subtleties involved to make the whole thing worth reading. I was really surprised to find this sensitive and enjoyable characterization given that I was expecting nothing more than a dog eating his way through small town America.

In the end though, the book does fall back on its stock horror component, which just seems to lack a certain oomph. A lot of the interesting characterization falls by the wayside as the conclusion approaches. The ending is heavily involved in concluding the rabid dog subplot, and most of the details surrounding the people, the marriages and the families are left unmentioned and unresolved. It's a pity that King took that sort of ending, because I felt that there was still some gold to be mined there.

I can't help but wonder if this book would have worked better if split up into two separate novels - one a horror story and the other the human drama. Alternatively, the two disparate pieces could have been integrated together with more coherence. But as it stands, the two sections, while having several highlights, don't seem to match up well with each other. CUJO is less than the sum of its parts, which is a shame given how enjoyable and engrossing several of the main parts are.

Rating:
Summary: Snowball Effect of Suspense
Review: It was interesting to read this book after reading King's "On Writing" where he reveals he has no memory of even writing Cujo due to drug use. He has a very powerful mind and it is demonstrated in his book.

The story starts out a little slow, getting the reader introduced to all of the characters (there are quite a few). The stories start to intertwine as suspense builds.

At first the thought of a rabid dog is a little unnerving, but when it is a 200 lb. St. Bernard whose thoughts you can read, it becomes horrifying.

There are so many coincedences that work against the characters. King didn't waste his time in introducing them---instead, he built a relationship between the reader and the characters. The reader is rooting for most of the characters and each character seems so real. King even did an excellent job describing the thoughts, feelings and actions of the female characters.

A few things were left unfinished which is why I didn't give this story 5 stars. There are two characters and a recurring situation that seems very important through the story, yet are left unfinished. He ends it superbly, though, but I was left wondering what ever happened to the other three things.

This book is incredibly suspenseful, a climax building up throughout the whole book to the point where you just can't read it fast enough. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to suspense and thriller fans.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect From Beginning To End
Review: Cujo is a short read compared to King's epic novels like It and The Stand; but it is one of the scariest because its realistic. It would be a hard task for anyone else to center an entire novel around a rabid dog, but since this is Stephen King, he pulls it off beautifully. Its fast paced, terrifying, and tells a spooky tale about childhood fear and domestic conflict. King succeeds in capturing the small town essence of so many of his novels with his powerful ability to chill his readers....and perhaps arouse their own fears..in this case, a saint bernard on the rampage. Well Worth it!