The Shining (The Shining, #1) in Classics Without All the Class

Feb 21, 2012 Caitlyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

King always knows how to make his characters (good and evil) believable, he makes them relatable and just like everyday people.

Jack, a father struggling with alcoholism, looses his job as a teacher by loosing his temper on a student. He has always had a bad temper and the alcohol doesn't help. He gets a job as winter caretaker at a secluded hotel with a dark history. The Overlook,("whatever redrum was it was there")Reluctantly his wife Wendy and son Danny go with him against bad feelings about King always knows how to make his characters (good and evil) believable, he makes them relatable and just like everyday people.

Jack, a father struggling with alcoholism, looses his job as a teacher by loosing his temper on a student. He has always had a bad temper and the alcohol doesn't help. He gets a job as winter caretaker at a secluded hotel with a dark history. The Overlook,("whatever redrum was it was there")Reluctantly his wife Wendy and son Danny go with him against bad feelings about this Hotel.

Through the entire book, Alcohol is major problem in Jacks life, and we see him struggle with trying to be a good dad. In the beginning he is an ordinary father, with flaws, but none the less still a overall "good" person. Being in the hotel has brought back memories of his own abusive father and he has heard voices telling him to do unthinkable things to his family. The Hotel has made Danny and Jack hear and see terrible things that have happened in the past. Though Jack does not want to admit he has seen these things. Until he looses it of course.....

Danny has a special gift, he is able to read the minds of his mother and father, feels what they are feeling, has a special "friend" Tony. and its not until he meets Dick Hallorann he really understands what this gift is. It's called the SHINING and they both have it. They have a connection and Danny has more power than anyone Dick has meet before.

The villain is at first seemly, Jack, but we learn that the hotel and its ghosts are really behind it. It must have seen Jacks weakness with alcohol and short fuse to use it to get to Danny.

Questions I had about this book.

1) If Danny never had The Shining, would any of this had happened, or does the Overlook just want to kill anyone it can? Like Grady and his family.

2)Does the SHINING add to the power of the house? Is the reason it wants Danny because of his powers?

3)Is Tony really an older version of Danny? Maybe as he got older he could use his powers to somehow mind time travel or something, telling his 5 year old self how to survive. hmmmm?

The third part of the book was the best, I felt I couldn't stop reading for about the last 200 pages. Now I need to read Doctor Sleep!! ...more

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