Reviews with content warning for Murder - Friedhof der Kuscheltiere

A Halloween classic. One of King's strongest works, this supernatural tale deals with the subject of loss and grief and how those things can change someone in ways that no one could expect. With themes of death and grief present throughout, it can at times be hard to get through for some readers, but if horror and the supernatural are your things, then this is definitely one for the TBR list. The length might be intimidating, as a lot of King's works are, but the story is worth it to finish reading.

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I am still a bit of a novice when it comes to reading horror books, but I felt genuinely uneasy and frightened reading this book. Wow, what an introduction to the Stephen King horror-verse for me.

I have kind of strayed away from horror in my quest of storytelling because a lot of my experience with the genre was more unrealistic tales where I was not really caring about the characters, which led me to feeling like the genre was just ridiculous, not scary. This book has definitely shown me what horror should really be. A cast of characters you can identify with, the circumstances you can relate to, and a "plausible" belief of the horror they experience. There is a reason King notes in the foreword that he almost always references this book as one of his scariest stories.

The main character has a drive to keep everyone safe and also (being a doctor) feels the need to revitalize anyone in distress. And when death comes knockin', the grief from his perceived failure drives him to take advantage of the horror he knows holds a big risk to his family. This story really flips the outlook of "we take life for granted" to "we take death for granted".

My only complaints are that the book uses a bit of cultural appropriation using

a Native American burial ground as the setting for pets and people to be resurrected. Also, the fact that Jud just outright shows Louis the burial ground ultimately leading to the demise of the ending. I know the narrative kind of makes it so Jud didn't have control (except he still kind of does have control?). I felt Jud's intentions were pretty confusing to understand, which may have been the point.

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