The Shining - Stephen King

...into yet another King classic, The Shining. Of course, generally when you've seen a certain Jack Nicholson film more times than you care to remember, you start to wonder, why bother? But then you hear how Stanley Kubrick practically threw Stephen King's novel into the fire after a quick skim read and went about making his own super version, makes you pretty inclined to read the novel that made King the bestseller he is today. Initially I was apprehensive ...
...the content of the first few hundred pages. I honestly wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. For a 500 page novel I shot through it in less than a week and enjoyed it immensely, even more so than Misery, King would later revisit The Shining's Colorado location ten years later to write Misery. The first passage of text which I reached when starting The Shining, was a personal introduction by Stephen King, which I assume is only included in ...

darkangelwing 08.03.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

The Shining is certainly among the most famous works of horror fiction in the 20th century. Written in 1977 when King was still a comparitively inexperienced writer (this was his third book, after Carrie and 'Salem's Lot), The Shining was propelled to fame three years after its original release when the Stanley Kubrick-directed film-adaptation arrived. There is no doubting the popularity of the film, but what about the book? For thoughs who have ...
...a job as Caretaker for the Overlook hotel during the winter months when it will be closed and most likely snowed off. He gets the job and so travels there with wife Wendy and son Danny. The term 'shining' comes from what Dick Hallorann, the hotels chef, describes he sees in Danny. Shining is the ability to, in some cases, read peoples thoughts, but more defined is the sense of danger and hostility. When things start to go badly wrong in the hotel, ...

tom1clare 24.07.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...picked up my copy of The Shining and began reading it. I've only recently started reading horror/Stephen King, so this is all unfamiliar territory to me - my previous experience of horror writing has been several Point Horror books about ten years ago and a few short stories. I thought that having seen the film a couple of times, I wouldn't come across anything too unexpected: I was wrong. So what had I expected? Put simply, I expected the film just ...
...goodness! The major difference is that the book actually concentrates on The Shining (psychic ability) rather than just trying to be frightening. It also offers a lot more in the way of background story, which makes it even more frightening. Jack Torrance is a mostly-unsuccessful writer whose sole achievement is having a story published in Esquire. He is forced to leave his teaching job after beating up a student and his friend, Al Shockley, finds ...

DoubleFantasy11 27.09.2005 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

The first time I really tried to get into Stephen King was watching the film ‘The Shining’- loving the suspense and horror of it I eventually bought the novel to see how it compared... PLOT: One bit of advice, it is far more detailed compared to the film. Ok, so this is pretty normal in terms of novel to film adaptations (i.e. not including certain events), but the film’s plot is edited so severely in places it even incorporates ...
...however- the plot. Jack Torrance is a writer who becomes a caretaker during the winter months at the isolated and infamous Overlook Hotel with his wife Wendy and five year old son Danny. Here they need to spend a few months keeping up maintenance on the place, whilst trying not to get affected by the fact that they will be the only ones there during that period of time, with little or no outside contact at all. Sound foreboding? That it is...The ...

Beckim 05.08.2004 (12.08.2004) · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...is offered a job as the caretaker of a huge ancient hotel where he has to stay during the winter season. Once there and isolated from the rest of the world, a series of strange events only seen and felt by young Danny start to happen in the hotel, and Jack seems to get posessed by a malignant force living in the building. Just a brief review of a work of art which deserves one of highest positions in King´s ratings. I remember reading this novel ...
...that same night looking at the main door´s eyehole and imagining someone would be snooping on me from the outside.. someone or something that once could have been alive but that now was just a hideous being trying to reach me. That's the kind of reaction that this book has in any reader, regardless of age or literary taste: it turns him/her into a child again and brings back all that fears that seemed forgotten. "The Shining" is basically the story ...

Aurynne 12.01.2004 (19.01.2004) · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...As I had seen the film (Jack Nicholson version) before reading the book for the first time, I was doubtful if I would enjoy it as much as I loved the film. If possible I love the book more, as it seemed more personal when reading and of course there is a lot more in the book than the film, some bits are even completely different, but this isn't my opinion on the book v.'s the film so I will stop comparing them now (apart from saying the book is way ...
...to know a bit about the main characters, Jack Torrance - Alcoholic, sacked from his job as a teacher, even though he has given up alcohol, it is never far away from his mind and he had done some questionable things in the past. Wants to start a fresh life by finishing his play that he has been planning for ages. Wendy Torrance - Loving wife, although when her husband was at worse drinking phase wanted a divorce, but has given him another chance. ...

SarahP 12.05.2003 (03.10.2003) · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

For me, 'The Shining' is the most terrifying book ever written. No coincidence that it's also the first of King's that I ever read. It instilled in me a lifelong love of horror and its possibilities, and I'm almost certain it can for you too. Danny Torrance is only five years old, yet he is a powerful psychic. When his father becomes winter caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel, his visions grow frighteningly out of control. Hemmed in by the ...
...the hotel seems to come alive around the Torrance family. Room 217 is empty, or so says the register. Danny isn't convinced. And who are the guests going up and down in the elevator? Why do the hedges shaped like animals seem sometimes to… prowl? There is an evil force in the hotel, and Danny doesn't like what it's doing to his father… Simply, a masterpiece. Claustrophobic and heart-stoppingly frightening. Beyond the thrills and terrors though, ...

RichardW 12.12.2000 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...your definition of drama is the murderous villains lengthy monologue before his final, grisly defeat, you will be disappointed. If you're looking for a clone of the movie in book form, you will be very disappointed. If, however, you appreciate one of those rare novels that leads you into the story step by step, immersing you with effortless grace into the world in which it occurs, a world that is, on the surface, plain and even nondescript yet brimming ...
...is as capable of capturing the subtleties and nuances of terror as the hack and slash aspects, who can blend it perfectly into a familiar yet hauntingly awry world of ghosts darkness and ordinary people struggling against not only such mundane horrors as abuse and alcoholism but horrors of a decidedly more supernatural nature, then you might be ready for this book. I was captivated by the plight of Danny, a very unique young boy, struggling against ...

mookielidl 16.02.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...loved Stephen King’s work from the time that I read Carrie when I was 12. That was when it first came out and I was totally hooked. So naturally when The Shining came out, I snatched it quickly. I couldn’t put it down. It had my attention from the moment that I started reading it. For some reason, Stephen King just knows how to tell a good scary story and gets the reader caught up in the story’s plot. He gives plenty of details ...
...The Shining is a good example of this. I had no trouble picturing each character, how each one acted, and what they did. Sometimes it does get terrifyingly graphic. But I guess that is the whole point of reading Stephen King. The Shining opens with Jack Torrance in an interview for a job as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. He sees it as an opportunity to work on his writing while earning a living for his wife, Wendy, and 5-year-old son, ...

Terrie 29.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...one of his scariest. The main premise of the story is that a family go to look after a hotel during it's closed winter months, during which time they'll be snowed in. The father of the family is a recovering alcoholic and writer, and the son in the family 'Shines', meaning he is psychic. This phrase comes into being in the book when the cook who works in the hotel speaks to the boy, the cook apparently 'shines' too. The house over the winter turns ...
...gives in to it the most. There were a few choice moments in this novel which really got me. One was a lady in a bath-tub and young boy finds one day in the hotel. This woman is dead, only she gets up and chases after the boy. Another scary point is where the big hose fire extinguishers come alive like snakes and attack the boy. I don't want to spoil the plot for any potential readers, but this book is brilliant and definitely worth a read. Bit of ...

surveysista1988 10.06.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

This is the first time I have read The Shining. Regrettably I had watched the film before reading the book so the characters I was reading of took on the appearance in my head of the characters from the film. This did not matter matter a great deal as I did learn alot more about the characters from the book than the film. In the book i found Jack to be much less aggressive and not as sinister at first (until the hotel takes hold) which was good because ...
...change the hotel is making to him. Wendy, his wife seems quite mild mannered throughout and only becomes more strong as needed, she is a very caring character and although she seems a little subservient you can see that when the time comes she has it in her to what has to be done. Their son Danny seems a lonely type and has a very special gift. When they arrive at the hotel they are looking afterfor the winter period the chef Mr Halloran calls ...

Kimbod 31.08.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...this novel is one of the best novels ever revealed. It deals with the family Torrance. Jack drinks alcohol and often loses control. He was fired because of this fact. But he gets another chance from his friend Al Shockley who has connection with a hotel owner. He offers him a job: caretaker of the hotel Overlook. Torrance accepts the offer of course and moves to Colorado with his wife Wendy and his five-year-old son Danny. Danny possessed telepathic ...
...gives him advice. The family is alone but happy and everything is wonderful but the Overlook hotel is a seed of the evil and wants to take the control of Jack to kill Danny and Wendy because Danny is a danger for the hotel on account of his ability. Danny has to solve enigmas and the most difficult, strangest enigma is the word REDRUM...and this word is devilish! I fully recommend this book because you can read it twice, a third time. The characters ...

Ronny 21.03.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...winter holed up alone in the Overlook Hotel, where Jack is the caretaker. As soon as they arrive, Danny knows that things aren't quite right as he has the "shining" - psychic voltage, clairvoyance or what-have- you. His "invisible friend" Tony comes to him as he falls into trances. He sees images - a roque mallet slicing through the air, a woman lying dead in a bath.. and most of all.. REDRUM. The hotel is cut off from the world, the telephone ...
...in a terrible climax on the 2nd December. The Shining also confronts some harsh topics such as child abuse, alcoholicism and how they can both be passed down from generation to generation. The first few introductionary chapters of this amazing book are a bit slow to start off with, but after that I promise you won't be able to put it down! Stephen King manages to keep the suspense hanging on every page. What happens next? What is REDRUM? Who is ...

prissyfou 12.07.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...you need to know. The Shining is defiantly the best book I have ever reed. I actually reed it in Spain, and even on the beach in the sun I got Goosebumps during the room 217 scene. In my opinion the book is far better that the film which did not really follow the book precisely. The story is basically about a boy with something called the shining, this means he can see ghosts ect. I bit like the boy from the Sixth Sense. His father gets a job ...
...where they get snowed in. The ghosts in the hotel (and the hedge animals) start to attack the boy and turn the alcoholic father against them who eventually tries to kill them with a mallet. Nice A perfectly written book by probably the best horror writer around and far scarier that any film I have ever seen. ...

tomseear 21.04.2005 (25.04.2005) · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King

...to look after it for the winter, as the father is the caretaker there. It is totally isolated and with the terrible storms outside, they are trapped here. However, they soon realise they are not alone and terrifying things start to happen but they have no where to run. When the father starts acting violent and possessed it gets really spine chilling and will have you on the end of your seats. I think it is a fanatastic storyline and is scary throughout. ...
...drag on with moving to the hotel part. However, keep reading and you will soon get to the exciting part. The only downfall I can say about The Shining is the ending. I think this could have been improved as I was left quite dissapointed and thought it would have been much better, had the ending circumstances been different. The film based on this novel is good, but not as good as the book as the book includes a lot more detail and imaginative occurances ...

simba111 20.12.2006 (21.12.2006) · Read full review
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Review of The Shining - Stephen King