The Shining

The Shining by Stephen King

Published- 1st November 2011
Publisher- Hodder and Stoughton
Pages- 497 pages (paperback)

  

The Overlook Hotel is run by Mr Ullman and they have just hired a new caretaker called Jack Torrance. Jack moves into the Overlook Hotel with his wife Wendy and son Danny. However, this is no ordinary hotel as it is filled with ghosts and lots of secrets. What is the hotel hiding? Does it have plans for Jack and his family? Who are all the ghosts haunting this hotel?

This novel was not as scary as I thought it would be, but then it is really hard to scare me. It did have a lot of creepy and heart pumping moments. For example, some of the ghosts were quite creepy and the action towards the end of the novel was quite heart pumping. You do gain your favourite characters which are the ones you want to survive and not become a victim of the hotel. Danny was a great main character as he was really cute and would do anything to protect his parents from becoming victims of the hotel. 

Jack did annoy me at some points because all he wanted to do was to get drunk by having martinis (Martians). However, when he got drunk he became really vicious towards Wendy and Danny. This is shown by him breaking Danny's arm when he was younger. Wendy would do anything to protect her son from Jack and that meant killing Jack should it come to that. I also liked Dick Hallorann as he wanted to do anything to protect Danny from the hotel. He even traveled from Florida to the Overlook hotel to save Danny as Danny messaged him that he was in trouble. 

I have not yet seen the film of the Shining so I will have to watch that sometime soon to see how they differ from one another. However, I do know that the scene with 'Here's Johnny' is not featured within the book. That is a memorable scene with the film featuring Jack Nicholson. There is also a scene featuring blood pouring out of the elevator and this also does not feature within the novel. 

Overall, I give this novel 4/5 stars. It was not as scary as I thought it would be, but it did have it's creepy moments. If you like Stephen King novels or just want to read a creepy scary book then this is definitely one for you. I shall be reading more Stephen King books in the future such as Misery, Just After Sunset, Christine, 11/22/63, Cell, Pet Semetary and Mr Mercedes.

                      Rating 4/5