A review by abithoughtful
The Shining by Stephen King

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

2.5

I so wanted to love this, and I did find it reasonably enjoyable but I do feel it could have been 200 pages shorter and been just... better. I saw the film first and I definitely prefer the more in depth character study the book gives us, and I also enjoyed that the nature of the haunting of the Overlook was less abstract and more coherent, and the symbolism is much tighter, but during the last 100 pages I found myself skimming through the padding (which I think is King trying to build tension with limited success) to get to the real meat. Not enough dense emotion for my taste in horror, verbose with too much mundane filler between the scares. It was fine but if this is among King's best regarded works then I'll be sticking to other writers. Also super male gazey (Wendy is a well rounded character but her breasts are not relevant to the story, Stephen) and racist as hell.
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