Rating: 
Summary: Underrated
Review: I have to start this off by saying I am not a big Stephen King fan. That said, this book is nothing short of a masterpiece. The character of Jack Torrance is brilliantly revealed and expanded throughout the novel. Most of the people who gave this book a low rating probably wouldn't know a good book-or great one, for that matter-if it jumped up and bit them on the a$$. Most likely they see John Grisham(who i actually like) on the same level as Charles Dickens. What King does so wonderfully in this book is make his characters seem so real that you are able to connect with the emotional and physical pain they are put through. I recommend this book to anyone who says horror novels are not "real" literature.
Rating:
Summary: The Shining
Review: This amazing, gripping and horrifying story of Jack Torrance and his wife and son who Danny move into a hotel for the winter so that Jack can be the caretaker of it.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I love reading and one of my teachers said that I would live Stephen King. So I went out and got The Shining. I think this is a great book. I tould all my friends that it was a great book and some of them went out and got it. I do not think kids under 8th grade should read Stephen king book. So read this book.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Shines On!
Review: I have a friend who reads Stephen King, he said he doesn't really like the way he writes. He he did say, however, that THE SHINING scared the crap out of him and he kept insisting that I should read it. Altough, I am not easy to be "mentally disturbed" by scary books, I did think THE SHINING was very well written and very errie and suspenseful. The book is very different fron the Jack Nicholson movie. For one thing, there are topiary animals in the Overlook playground that actually move and attack people like real creatures! When the Overlook hotel "claims" Jack, he attacks his family with a roque mallet instead of an axe. Hallorann, the Overlook's cook, is not killed. The twin "ghost girls" thing is different, it is described as a "creature" inside one of the play tubes in the hotel playground. The possessed Jack also dies in very different way! The movie was so different from the book, that I'm surprised that Stanley Kubrick (the director) didn't call it something like A SHINING or MY SHINING or something like that! I reccomend this book to anyone who can read!
Rating:
Summary: 450 Pages of Suspense.
Review: This is one of the best novels I have read. Not only did this scare me to the point where I kept my glasses on while taking a bath, but, more importantly, shows how vulnerable people are. Jack Torrance agrees to be the winter caretake of the elegant Overlook Hotel, which means spending five months snowbound with his family, Wendy and Danny. Sure, the last caretaker snapped and axed his family to pieces, but that wouldn't happen in this case, right? Besides, he promised not to hurt Danny anymore, and he had stopped drinking alcohol. Danny has the Shining, some sort of a sixth sense that makes him hallucinate things that will happen and hear what others are thinking. And the hotel is determined to use it, even if it does involve controlling the person Danny loves most, his father Jack. There are a few creepy parts in this novel: The decaying woman in room 217, the hedge animals, and Jack slowly slipping into insanity. If you would like a long read, get this book. But if you want to get scared enough to hide under the covers, get the original movie with Jack Nicholson. Even though it's not really faithful to the book, it's still something you need to watch.
Rating:
Summary: REDRUM!
Review: Stephen King has been foremostly labeled "The King of Horror" for much of his adult life, and in this book he vividly tells us why. It is not so much as visual horror as it is mental, seeing the down-and-out writer Jack Torrance's slow ascension into insanity, which King vividly describes and perpetuates. Reading this book is like slipping into the Overlook yourself, as King tells the characters' stories through his superb writing and vivid imagination. The pages seem to fly by your eyes without a whim, your brain just sucking up the story like a vacuum, and once you reach the "explosive" end, you may be wishing for more. Also, I'd like to make a point to all of those who have seen the movie but have not read the book, as the movie misses many of the critical plot points of the book. They only got a few scenes right, such as the woman in the tub scene, the ballroom scene, and the scene where Jack is locked in the pantry. If you want to know the whole story and not the rehashed elements of the movie, go out and buy The Shining, and I'll guarantee you'll love every minute of it. Of what I've read so far of Mr.King, this is my favorite "horror" story by him, but the top of the list will always remain with The Green Mile. Check them both out!!
Rating:
Summary: A very good, very scary story!
Review: THE SHINING is a very good scary story. It's well told, has interesting characters and is a book that you won't want to put down. It is a good read throughout - with very little "slow" parts. The characters are ones you will grow to care about and empathize with. King is a wonderful storyteller and this is definitely one of his great ones!
Rating:
Summary: One of Stephen King's Greatest
Review: The Shining is one of the best books that Stephen King has ever written. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I definitely recommend this book as one of the most best of Stephen King's books.
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.
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