Cujo

Rating:
Summary: Look at Those Big Sad Puppy Dog Eyes
Review: A loveable, cute, adorable, sad eyed dog with a small keg around its neck used as a rescue dog. These are the things most people think about when they see or hear about a St. Bernard. We either can't or don't want to think about one of these beautiful large dogs having Rabies. But it is a fact of life. In this book Mr. King strays from the supernatural into something that could and has happened in real life and that is what makes this book so scary.

I took this book off my shelf last weekend to read while relaxing at the pool on a hot summers day. Well I couldn't put it down. I was amazed that this book kept me riveted to it a second time. The first time I read it, I began reading it early in the evening and read until I was finished. Ok, this time I started it earlier and was able to put it down long enough to eat my dinner but that was it.

Folks if you want an excellent fast paced read. Then Cujo is the book. You won't want to put it down until you have finished the last page.

Caution: If you own a dog you may find yourself reading with one eye while trying to keep the other on your own dog, I DID.

I have read many books by Mr. King, but after a second read I think this has surpassed the Shining as my favorite.

Rating:
Summary: So Very Much with So Little
Review: The Golden Age of Stephen King (from Salem's Lot to approximately Christine) was a glorious time for horror fans and Cujo fits nicely into this period. The story is basic with no supernatural add-ons. It is about a crazed dog and a mother and son trapped in a car and, in the hands of the master, this makes for nail-biting suspense. It never has the feel of an elongated and needlessly stuffed short story (such as Pet Semetary or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon) but is a meaty read all on its own. My only regret is that a friend decided to tell me the ending. He won't bother us anymore. An exciting, well-crafted book.

Rating:
Summary: Frighteningly realistic
Review: This book is scary and thrilling. I highly recommend it as a first King book.

Rating:
Summary: cujo
Review: This is a great work of horror, king expresses the feelings of the characters and their struggles beautifully. Although i must admit the best part of the book has to be the last 50 pages or so, when the child and mother are about at the breaking point with cujo and must escape. There are a couple of little twists and turns to make it interesting. Overall i thought the book was great.

Rating:
Summary: Pulp fiction thriller
Review: "Cujo" is one of the very few novels by Steve King that are solely plot-oriented. The dog-gone-rabid frame is perfect for a short story, yet it can hardly suffice for the backbone of the three hundred odd page novel. In a failed attempt to rescue the novel from being sketchy, the author introduces us to the silhouette lives of a few characters. Still, precisely because the characters are cartoonish, and because the stories and subplots are detached, they seem somehow redundant, pasted in, glued to the dog-gone-rabid skeleton of the novel. In effect, what we get is an inferior Koontz-like "thriller" that is half a bore, and half an artificially inflated short story. Everything that happens (or does not happen for that matter) in the book serves one purpose only - to justify the "climax" situation. I am not going to point out all weaknesses of the construction, like the empty notion of cheating wife presented as a bare fact, the advertising company issue being as bizarre as you can get. Take the latter out of the novel, and the only change you are going to get is the smaller page count.

All of these comments do not apply to his other novels, although I have one more "Firestarter" to read, which is not a good prospect, I hear. "Cujo" is just a half-baked book with a weak central idea (the only idea, in fact), nothing more. It could have been so much better. For example, the characters that could very well live in other books by this imaginative author - are two antisocial countrymen, Joe Camber and his buddy.

To summarize, "Cujo" is unfortunately a cheap pulp fiction thriller with (mostly) pathetic characters. Well, everyone has humps and slumps, and we should expect nothing else from writers. They are no different than we.

Rating:
Summary: The poor punish the rich
Review: The book is, by far, better than the film. It is better because it describes in details the social environment of the drama. First it describes very well the profession of the father who is working in advertising and is confronted with a crisis about one of his popular TV advertisements about cereals. We follow this crisis and the solution that has to be found in the context of a possible law-suit from some customers who attribute some health problems they have to the consumption of the cereals he advertises. Second it describes very well the psychological problem of the mother who is « neglected » by her husband due to his stressful situation. He has to think of his money-making career first and he is less of a loving husband due to his lack of time. So she has a liaison with a crafstman, a liaison that is a quest too : the search for a man who is purely male and even a little bit beastlike in his sexual performance (sex for sex and nothing else). Third the description of the car problem is more detailed, and it is this problem that determines the drama. Fourth the description of the « popular » family of the car-repairman is also more detailed : domineering husband, submissive wife, son taken inbetween this difficult relationship. In Stephen King’s novels, the details are essential because they give a full picture of American society. They make the books realistic, a fresco of American life, and this gives Stephen King a dimension that can compare with some of the greatest names of American literature, like Dreiser. The core of the book is that the son of the rich family is the victim of the dog (a toy of a kind) of the son of the poor family. This make the book tragic. Then the death of the rich kid in the hands, in the arms of his mother shows how her « mistake » is severely punished, as well as the mistake of the father who does not solve a material problem out of spite because the liaison was revealed to him in the midst of his own professional crisis. He kind of abandons his wife to her own means and she is not able to cope with a rabid Saint Bernard. But who would be ? ...

Rating:
Summary: AWSOME
Review: This book is Awsome!!!!! Mr. Stephen King, (Though Dosen't remember it) has written a great book of supernatrural horro that seems to hold true in the world were we live. It was also one of the best endings of any book that I have ever read. Pick it up and read it with the lights on and the windows up. Man's best friend has become your worst nightmare!

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: This book is simply a masterpiece. Incredibly deep, this one should be on all high school required reading lists. There's so much more to it than a rabid dog on the loose. The book gives a pessimistic message about the fate of everyone, that bad things will happen no matter how good you are, and everyone is responsible. Make sure you read this carefully and thoughtfully. One of King's best, and definitely his most thoughtful.

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest books of all time! A true masterpiece!
Review: Before I read "Cujo", I had never read a Stephen King novel in my life. When I got this book at my public library, my mom warned me that even adults thought that Stephen King was scary. When I got home, and started reading the book, I was captivated from the very beginning! From the haunting memory of Frank Dodd to the wonderfully suspenseful climax in Joe Camber's driveway, the book attracts the reader to it with more power than a supermagnet. After I read this book, I was inspired to read even more Stephen King, and since then have read "The Green Mile," "Christine," and am working on finishing "It." All of them are wonderful stories, but none of them quite compare with the moving work of "Cujo"!

Rating:
Summary: Horrible!
Review: This was the fourth book I read by Stephen King and to put it mildly, it was a disappointment. Actually, reading it was like getting your teeth pulled out by a tow truck with no novicane. I usually read through books pretty fast, but with this one, I only made it halfway through after a week and a half. It was such a slow read because it was so ...boring. I read The Stand, The Shining, and Misery before this one, I was actually angry that Stephen King could produce such a .... I would rather read the phone book then attempt to read this book again. I think the only use for this book is to light my fireplace. TAKE MY WORD, DON'T READ THIS BOOK.