The Shining starts well—it is ominous, with believable characters dealing with ordinary horrors. As the novel progresses, increasingly supernatural elements increase the reader’s awareness of the fear underlying the experience of this family dealing with alcoholism. About halfway through, the story changes focus, and falls back into a well-written but less interesting thriller, heavy with building fears and partial resolutions. I found myself fighting to get through to the end without putting it aside.
Coincidentally, I was trapped in my house briefly by some unusually cold and icy conditions; so I finished it. Luckily we have no topiary animals…
The ending of the novel is a nice balance of catastrophe and cautious hope, and mostly worth the trudge.

I enjoyed the book, although it wasn't as scary as I had expected (not like It which had me afraid of drains for who knows how long, haha). The one thing that I think made it more difficult for me was that when Danny was thinking it tended to feel like an adult, casually using words that 6 year olds don't know or understand. But overall the story sucked me in and definately had me jumping at the bumps in the night. :) ( )

Stephen King's The Shining is my second book for the 1% Well-Read Reading Challenge. Although I'm sure that the plot is familiar to most of you, I'll still try to give you a short synopsis. Jack Torrance signs on to be the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado, and takes his wife Wendy and 5-year-old son Danny along for the ride. The Torrance's are doomed to months of complete isolation while snowed in at the creepy old hotel.

Recovering alcoholic Jack hopes that the time alone with his family might help him to exorcise some of his personal demons, and finish writing the play he has been working on. Wendy is uncomfortable with remoteness of the Overlook and worries about medical emergencies, among other things, but Danny is the only one who "knows" that going up to the Overlook is a bad idea. Danny has "the shine," a powerful psychic ability which allows him to inexplicably see and know things he cannot possibly know. A potent paranormal entity in it's own right, The Overlook Hotel is envious of Danny's ability, and wishes to absorb it.

The Shining is a harrowing tale of survival against a dynamic supernatural force, and King takes the story right off the page, giving it a distinct life of it's own. It is exceedingly well crafted, with original, believable characters, that you cannot help but become involved with.

Stephen King is everything you've heard: "The Master of Horror Fiction," "Fascinating," "Frightening," "Hypnotic," "Demonic," "Tremendous," "Spellbinding," and more! His imagination and understanding of the human condition is without parallel.

If you've only seen the movie, you are seriously missing out. Stanley Kubrick is a genius in his own right, but this book exceeds the big screen adaptation in so many ways. The Shining is one of the most frightening works of fiction I've ever read - I was hearing and seeing things in every dark corner of my house for a week! Even though it was scaring the living daylights out of me, I couldn't put it down for long. It was shocking, disturbing, complex and thrilling.

Easily one of the best "haunted house" stories I've ever read, The Shining had me absolutely riveted from page one. The Shining is one of King's best known novels, and gives a great introduction into the mind of one of the world's greatest masters of fright. ( )

Love the book--extremely creepy.

I haven’t finished reading this book because to me it wasn’t that great, but King Likes to wait till the good stuff happens. I don’t like it to much because it was to bring and nothing exciting was really happening, so instead I watched the movie first and then I will finish the book. So first start reading the book and if you don’t like then watch the movie so that you can get motivated to read it and can’t wait till what happens.
Jack got a job as a hotel watcher. He will be watching over a big hotel for the winter while it is closed. Well the hotel is hounted by these two girls and their family. Jackes little boy, Danny was under the girls control and had gotten really sick before Jack, and wendy moved to the hotel. Then later on jack becomes crazy and starts to try to kill his wife, wendy and Danny. ( )