The Shining - Stephen King

Novel: The Shining

Author: Stephen King

Pages: 683

Rating: 4.5/5

This is the first Stephen King novel I've ever read and I have to say, I'm glad I read it.

When I first started reading "The Shining", I wasn't familiar with King's writing technique and to be quite frank, I didn't like it. But a few chapters in and I was intrigued by the story. For those of you who don't know the story of "The Shining", it's about a family - Jack, Wendy and their 5-year-old son Danny. Danny is psychic and can see spirits and premonitions of what is going to happen in the future. He has an imaginary friend called Tony, who visits him from time to time.

Wendy is very protective over her son and although she loves her husband, she can't help but think that life would be so much easier without him. When Jack, who is a recovering alcoholic loses his job, he gets offered a job as the winter caretaker of a hotel called The Overlook. He takes his family with him to the isolation of this spooky hotel for the whole winter - about 5 months in total.

It doesn't take long for some strange things to start happening and the hotel plays a huge role in this story.

I don't want to spoil what happens for those of you that don't know the story, so I'll leave you with that brief overview.

The story had me captivated and almost screaming at the pages as what I was reading both shocked and excited me. I was so eager to find out what happened next that I read all 683 pages in 4 days. It kept me up at night, terrified of leaving my bedroom in the dark.

If you have seen the Stanley Kubrick movie then I'd completely forget about it in all honesty. It does the novel no justice at all and doesn't show the true colours of Jack Torrence. There is a fine line between alcoholism and psychosis which the movie just doesn't capture at all.

All in all I was very pleased with the book and say I'd most probably read it again and with the knowledge and a little bit of experience of King's writing I think I'd enjoy it more.