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Task #20: Read a middle grade book that doesn’t take place in the U.S. or the UK
By Book Riot · 90 posts · 1679 views
By Book Riot · 90 posts · 1679 views
last updated Dec 31, 2020 02:39PM
What Members Thought

(an older review from the catacombs....)
It was the moving topiary that got me. Right there on page 206 of The Shining, Stephen King grabbed my aorta and wouldn’t let go.
Jack Torrance, the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, has just finished doing a little touch-up trimming on the bushes in the hotel’s front yard. The greenery, sculpted to look like animals (a rabbit, a dog, a lion), suddenly takes on a life of its own when Jack’s back is turned:
"Everything was just as it had been. So why ha ...more
It was the moving topiary that got me. Right there on page 206 of The Shining, Stephen King grabbed my aorta and wouldn’t let go.
Jack Torrance, the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, has just finished doing a little touch-up trimming on the bushes in the hotel’s front yard. The greenery, sculpted to look like animals (a rabbit, a dog, a lion), suddenly takes on a life of its own when Jack’s back is turned:
"Everything was just as it had been. So why ha ...more

Alas, the movie is better, in part because the book is both Freudian and determinist (as my husband put it, "It was the seventies, after all."). Still, King deserves major kudos, obviously, for coming up with the premise. Shine on, oh horror god.
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I haven't given up on a book in a long time but this one is just not doing it for me. Long, drawn out bits of boredom interspersed with a brief, mildly entertaining snippet. Watched the film last night, and didn't really feel that either! I don't get what all the fuss is about - I didn't find it scary at all. Only redeeming feature of the film was Jack Nicholson's face!
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Scary stuff here; definitely not the best bedtime reading... written back when King was still good! I plan to read Dr Sleep next, but I'm not holding my breath that it will be as good ;/
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Jan 03, 2009
Wendy Seles Shelton
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
absolute-favorites

Nov 18, 2009
Cass Sadek
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-harder-2018
