Jack Torrance and his family have had a rough few years. Jack is now a former alcoholic, trying desperately to provide for his wife and son after losing his job as a school teacher. But money is short and dwindling, so when a job as a caretaker is offered to Jack, he is very willing to accept. There is a catch, however, and it’s a big one. The family would have to spend all winter, alone and snowed in, in a big hotel situated in the mountains. What could possibly go wrong, you ask? Well… let’s see, a few things. The hotel IS haunted, for a start. And Jack’s son has psychic abilities. But what terrible things could The Overlook have in store for the family?

We delve into the minds of Jack, Wendy and Danny Torrance and relive bits and pieces of their past memories. We learn how they think and get to know them nicely; a family with skeletons in their closets, trying now to just have a good life and get over past incidents.

This book, for me, wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, however it still interested me on some level.

We see deeply how the hotel affects these three individual people as time goes on. With Jack, it’s the slow decent into madness; thinking his family are against him and that the hotel wants HIM and only him, which to him is an honour. With Wendy, it’s the torture of seeing her husband change and her son becoming riddled with terror. And Danny, my favourite character in this book, definitely ‘shines’ in more ways than one. We get to see the horror he has to go through and how he has to grow up quickly to overcome his fears in the end.

There is a lot of back story in this, where we are taken back to past events. I believe it was needed for the reader to understand the family better, however, because of this the main plot was left aside. It took a great deal of time for the story to actually get exciting. I found the last hundred pages were the best, as the story took off. Before that was full of backstory and the slow build up to insanity, which was a tad boring.

I hardly ever comment on the writing of a book, just the story itself. But the writing was… eh. Yes, ‘eh’ is how I describe it. It was odd at times and quite annoying. An example;

"A writing desk
(Pray tell me: Why is a raven like a writing desk)
by the large shuttered window. During the season the Constant Writer
(having a wonderful time, wish you were fear)
would have a pretty view of the mountains to describe to the folks back home."

I mean... huh? Though, this was written in the 70's, which is probably why this book got away with it.

This book was not scary, which was a shame to me. I wanted to get the shivers, but it’s very rare if even a movie does that to me these days. One thing I liked was the hedge animals, but they definitely weren’t scary. I found myself wanting to have them in my own garden. Great guard animals they would be.

Surprisingly, people that haven't even read this book claim to like it. Movies tend to do that, and the fact it's Stephen King just adds to it. I however, never pretend to like something no matter how famous the author is.

This is the first Stephen King book I have ever read and I do plan on reading more.

© Catherine Forbes 2011