The Shining
Horror
By Stephen King
Reviewed by C Young
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Jack Torrance, a hard-working, dedicated writer/father, has no idea what he’s getting himself and his family into when he agrees to look after the Overlook Hotel during the winter. The hotel is old, abandoned, and just plain creepy. But what could possibly go wrong? More than one could possibly imagine.
The Overlook Hotel is in the middle of nowhere. Its barely on the map in the middle of the Colorado mountains. The time is set in the 1970’s, and the winters are violent. Jack and Wendy Torrance don’t take this into account when they bring themselves and their 8-year-old son Danny. When they arrive to the hotel everything seems normal. They receive a tour from the hotel’s receptionist, maintenance instructions, and they’re on their own. For the first couple weeks, everything is seemingly average. Except for when Danny starts adapting strange behavioral habits. He’s getting violent and talks to his finger in a deep voice… weird right? You would think that the Torrance’s take action and get Danny to a doctor, but no. They just blow it off their shoulders and move on with life.
Then things get really weird. Jack is beginning to get more and more frustrated with Wendy and Danny, seemingly for no reason. He says he cant focus on his writing because there’s “too much noise” , when Danny and Wendy are in completely different rooms of the monstrous hotel. He develops extremely violent behavior until one day, everything takes a turn for the terrifying. Jack goes absolutely insane. And Danny’s behavior has gotten worse. Wendy, shocked and horrified, hasn’t the slightest clue of how to stop Jack’s killing-spree, and is in the dark on the source of Danny’s sudden obsession with murder and gore. What will Wendy do to get everything back to normal? Will anything ever be the same?
The Torrance family is not an unusual one, which adds to the scare factor of this book. Because it makes you wonder if this could happen to anyone. Stephen King did an exceptional job writing this book because it pushes you out of your comfort zone, and constantly keeps you wondering what is going to happen next. To rate this book 5 out of 5 does not do it justice. Because honestly, I have never been scared by a book the way this one scared me. The Shining is not a book you should read if you have limited time. Because you will NOT want to stop reading it at any time.
