Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

10 reviews

tifftastic87's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

"I don't wanna be buried in a pet sematary,
I don't want to live my life again."
-The Ramones

Louis Creed has moved his family from Chicago to Maine for a job. The house is idyllic with one exception, the road out front is a throughway for very large tanker trucks. When Louis's daughter's cat, Church, is hit by one of these trucks, the neighbor, Jud, shows Louis what to do. They bury Church in the real pet cemetery, a place where the dead don't stay dead. Church comes back not quite right, but he's definitely back. So, when Louis's 2 year old son gets hit by a different truck, Louis does the unthinkable.

I first read this book back in high school and I remember finishing it and being terrified to be home alone. This time around it was just as eerie, but 20 years has given me some perspective. The trope of the "ancient Indian burial ground" is definitely outdated and a little more than gross as is the use of a Wendigo. But the imagery of everything is still spooky.

I really liked Jud and the relationship he had with Louis. It is always nice to see wholesome relationships between men and I feel like King always does a good job at that. The same with the relationship with the other doctors at the University.

There's a lot of good here, but there is a lot of cringe too. Oh, god the bathtub scene. I forgot it was in this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Sexual content, Cultural appropriation, Confinement, Grief, Medical content, Murder, Terminal illness, Medical trauma, and Blood

Moderate: Colonisation, Alcohol, and Racism

Minor: Antisemitism

madamenovelist's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Terminal illness, Blood, Death of parent, Medical content, Grief, Sexual content, Excrement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Murder, Violence, Vomit, Ableism, and Car accident

Moderate: Xenophobia and Racism

Minor: Antisemitism

chrisp189's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Child death

Moderate: Racism

archaicgambit's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The only Stephen King book I’ve ever read. Some passages were truly gripping. Others were clumsy and dated. There’s a lot of era-typical misogyny and racism in this. Found myself particularly fascinated by the airport scenes & other 80s references. The extended wizard of Oz symbolism was interesting too. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Animal death, and Murder

Moderate: Racial slurs, Medical trauma, Ableism, and Racism

Minor: Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, and Sexism

murderofcrows's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Gore, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Animal death, Death, Medical content, Car accident, Grief, Chronic illness, Blood, Child death, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Infidelity, Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Drug use, Cursing, and Sexual content

Minor: Cannibalism, Ableism, and Racism

kt2e56's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ve seen both movies before so I knew where everything was going to wind up but that didn’t ruin this experience all that much. This story is still horrifying. King does a great job of building dread throughout. Michael C. Hall was also an excellent narrator. I think where this loses a star for me is some of the usual King-isms.

It’s a little hard to take the big confrontation between Gage and Judd at the end seriously or find it terrifying when back-from-the-dead toddler Gage is taunting Judd by saying *checks notes* his wife used to cheat on him and loved taking it up the ass?

Yeah. Kinda kills an otherwise extremely tense moment. I also think Lewis kinda sucks at times. Refusing to get Church neutered because it felt like a slight against his own masculinity is just…lol. But anyway! Really solid book! I have kinda missed reading Stephen King. Maybe I’ll read and reread some more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Car accident, Ableism, Body horror, Child death, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Gore, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Animal death, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual content, Violence, and Racism

chloseencounter's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Pet Semetery may be the scariest book by King I’ve read so far and it’s definitely the best one I’ve read since The Shining. I think often King’s novels are like the longest build up ever to the world’s saddest orgasm but I actually felt that the pay off was worth it in this novel. I’ll also say that this was some very strong character writing but despite that maybe only two characters were actually likable, though I do at least think the mental decline in Louis over time is articulated well. I was also slightly put off by the completely out of place sex scenes that added literally nothing to the story but King is nothing if not horny. Even though I love to complain about King’s books I really did enjoy this one and would actually recommend it to people especially if you’re new to King or horror in general. I still think it could’ve been edited so much shorter but for the most part it felt more evenly paced than other King novels and I wasn’t often bored. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Child death, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, and Blood

Minor: Chronic illness, Racism, Terminal illness, Confinement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Violence, Grief, and Mental illness

aliciaroy19's review against another edition

dark

2.5

I'm disappointed in this book because it was fine. People had hyped this book and I was like okay. 

The atmosphere of the book is good and my favourite scene

was when Louis brought Church up to the pet sematry in the dark of night and Jud is acting almost possessed while something is watching them. Which now having read a few King books, creating an atmosphere is one of his strengths.

Meanwhile, the friendship between Jud and Louis was also well written and interesting. I liked the scenes with them just talking. And the pet sematary is an interesting concept (though the Indian Burial ground trope is a bad trope).  

However, I can help but think Louis secretly hates Rachel, at least he doesn't respect his wife, which made the narration tedious and a reason why it took over a month to finish this book. I understand that Rachel doesn’t have a healthy relationship with death and sometimes that fear caused her to make stupid decisions, but I found her husband only showed annoyance with her. Too much of the narration was of Louis complaining about his wife. This couple should divorce. 

I also wished that it was Ellie who died instead of Gage because Louis and Ellie had a strong relationship. They had a lot of scenes together and I could tell they loved each other as Gage was just the toddler in the background. The emotional impact of Ellie’s death would have hit hard. Instead, we had one chapter where Louis and Gage hang out that ends with too bad this would be their last day together.

 

And the random line about being a family doctor isn’t all breast exams and gynecology made me close the book. Though, Louis’ casual misogyny does explain why he dislikes his wife. 

In the end, I do have one question, how the hell did they get that bull up there? And how was it buried? Because Jud couldn’t help Louis while he brought a cat because their owner has to be the one to do that work, so how did the bull work?

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Animal death

Minor: Misogyny and Racism

sleepy_snail's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Murder

Minor: Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, and Racism

ogik's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Child death, Chronic illness, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexual content, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Vomit