Hello, whoever you are! This is my review about Stephen King’s The Shining, a novel that is very famous worldwide for almost half a century. It’s been read by maybe billions of people over the years, and even the least fans of horror books have read it, maybe many times.
The novel is simply about a family which moves to Overlook Hotel for the winter, as the father, Jack Torrance, will be the caretaker of the empty hotel for the winter. The novel’s four main characters are Jack, the dad; Wendy, the mom; Danny, the son and Dick Hallorann, the chef of the hotel.
Jack Torrance used to be a teacher at a school with a happy family. He had been suspended from his school because he had seen a student slashing his tires and had severely injured him. His friend, Al Shockley had prevented his departure from school and had set him up the job to be the caretaker of Overlook Hotel for the winter. He used to be a major alcoholic, so much that he had hurt his wife and his son when he was drunk. He had quit it after an accident with his friend Al Shockley. His wife, Wendy, is a beautiful woman who had married her husband by loving him, but she was at a moment, on the brink of divorcing him after he had broken Danny’s arm when he was drunk. But she had forgiven him after he gave up alcohol.
Danny is the most special person in the novel. He is a five-year-old boy who has the power called the Shining, which enables one to see the items’ places, the things that happened as well as the things that will happen and to connect with other people who have the Shining, like Danny connecting with Dick Hallorann. He used to see a lot of things in his dream that were or were going to be real, like his father having an accident or that bad things would happen at Overlook. He knew from the very beginning, but couldn’t be able to convince his parents. And as the family goes to the remote hotel with no connection to outer world; the scary, unbelievable yet real things start to happen… Bad souls have never been more real…
The book is surely a scary one, although I think that’s been overconsidered. It’s not that scary in my opinion. I would absolutely read it again, not only because its marvelous horror-fiction theme, but it gives the insight of the breakdown of a family and a man; laying all the reasons for everyone’s behaviour. Although the book isn’t boring, you should be able to tolerate some less fluent parts of it. And lastly, I’d recommend reading Doctor Sleep, the next book of the serie.
That’s pretty much it. I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading the book, but I hope you enjoyed this review as well. Have a good day y’all!