The Shining by Stephen King
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The back book cover of the edition that I bought includes a quote by The New York Times that says: “Scary…serves up horrors at a brisk, unflagging pace”… While I was reading the book I was wondering if they were reading the same story I was.
I was asked to read this book in an exchange for an honest review and I will try my best to remain as unbiased as possible.
Considering this story was written in the 1970’s and I have been exposed to many horror-type stories (in movies and books) without making the acquaintance of King’s storytelling first, most of the “shocking” scenes and “horrors” seemed predictable and lacking the final punch that gets your spine actually tingling. Furthermore, it felt like the author was so caught up in the process of dragging out the anticipation of something shocking and disturbing to happen by including countless, minute details that eventually defused the tension and left the reader struggling to recollect what the chapter or scene was initially supposed to be about. In addition to the abundance of details, the reader had to deal with the repetitive disclosure of facts that was given over and over again, making this read more of a work task than a thing of leisure.
Having said all that, the idea of the story, the plot, the human psychology and the fragility of it paired with the rare, but superbly written horror scene that lasted about one page almost 400 pages into the story, were very well thought out and had great potential. The few scenes, which did indeed deal with the sheer terror of the unknown were written to perfection, unfortunately they were few and not worth the almost 700 pages of this book.
I did not want to give The Shining only one star, because it had at times great entertainment value and a haunting quality that certainly caused more than a few nightmares.
