The Shining

The Shining by Stephen King
Doubleday - January 1977
447 pages

After ex-alcoholic and writer Jack Torrance gets fired from his job on the debate team at a New England prep school for injuring a student, he'll take any job he can to get the money. The job in mind for him is to be the caretaker of the Overlook for the winter, a mysterious Colorado hotel that the cook says is home to some horrible things. His son Danny has what is known as "the shine", telepathic abilities that make him sensitive to supernatural forces. The cook warns him to stay out of room 217, and that if there's any trouble he can just call using his powers.

The Shining, like other Stephen King novels I've red, started off incredibly slowly, but then picked up the pace much later. The topiary animals were extremely frightening to me, as well as the transformation of Jack Torrance. I thought that some parts were unneccessary when they were happening, such as the repeated mentioning of the boiler, but it turned out to be neccessary in the end. The scene where (spoiler alert!)Wendy stabs Jack with a butcher knife, but he turns out to be alive and comes at her again with the roque mallet(spoiler end) was one of the most frightening things I have read. This was a truly great example of horror fiction, and it made me scared to go to a hotel in Colorado.

Grade: B+