Discussion Post - Pet Sematary (Stephen King)

[Rachel]

Buddy read thread!

Synopsis: When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son-and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all...right down to the friendly car. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth-more terrifying than death itself-and hideously more powerful. The Creeds are going to learn that sometimes dead is better

Eve and I are going to buddy read this starting Monday 10/7!

[Eve]

Just wrapped up my reread of The Shining, and am starting Pet Sematary now! I'm excited to reread this...it was my very first Stephen King book and I read it when I was probably around 13? I don't remember much, so this will be fun! :)

[Rachel]

Yay! I am a dummy - i forgot today was a "holiday" so the library was closed. I am definitely picking it up tomorrow, as I only have until the 11th to do so lol.

I cannot wait to read this - as a kid the movie really scared me, particularly Zelda !

O__o

[Rachel]

I STARTED IT!!

I'm on page 120.

[Eve]

Yaaaaay! I'm on page 154 (my edition has 465 pages)

I had weird ass dreams last night, between reading Pet Sematary right before bed, the Weinstein shit, and watching The Good Place earlier...my brain compounded those into some creepy ass shit -_-

[Rachel]

It's fun to read it and remember the movie! I can remember some of the dialogue by the actors so I hear the lines in their voices as I read it lol. especially the part when Ellie was sad about Church dying. I feel for her so hard in that scene. :(

Oh, that reminds me, what do you think - do you want to put our discussions under spoiler cuts? It might get annoying having to do that lol. But i'm fine with it if you are :)

[Eve]

I'm fine with doing spoiler cuts when needed! I'm 44% through now and I don't really have much to say/discuss rn except (view spoiler)[omg a person was buried in the Pet Sematary?! I'm really curious about that now and idr if it's ever addressed again in the book but Louis kind of comes to that conclusion from Jud's reaction to his question about that so I'm like ???? and a bit disturbed lol (hide spoiler)]

[Rachel]

I'm at 40%!! tempted to click your spoiler LOL...

[Eve]

Ha well my question in the spoiler is answered later in the book so oop at me! I really forgot 95% of this book, good lord.

I'm at 75% now!

[Rachel]

Thoughts on where I'm at, which is page 166: (view spoiler)[Church has just come back from the dead, and Rachel and the kids have returned. Ellie is noticing that Church is different (smelly). I feel bad for Church right now, is that weird? lol (hide spoiler)]

I know Jud isn't being straight with Louis right now. And I clicked your spoiler Lol, so: (view spoiler)[I also think a person was buried there. Is it messed up that I think Norma was? I honestly cannot remember if that happened or was brought up in the movie. But I thought it was weird that Jud was acting suspicious to Louis's questions and around that time, Louis noticed that Normal's arthritis was pretty much gone. (hide spoiler)]

I'm scared to get to the zelda scenes, she scared the hell out of me when i was a kid. i had nightmares for years and thought I'd find her in our house - we had furniture similar to that of the movie, so i'd always fear i'd find her sitting on the bed lmao.

[Rachel]

I'm up to page 222 (53%)

(view spoiler)[ So i survived Zelda.... and it was scary as i thought it would be, lol. Fuuuuck. I kept imagining Zelda from the movie as I read the parts.

Soooo I guess I was wrong about Norma :D since she's actually dead now. i still think Jud is hiding something...

Gage just died and I feel really bad about it. Poor kid. I couldn't help but think of the way the movie showed his death. I think the way the book handled Gage's death was better. Well, not sure if "better" is the right word but I liked how there was the passage about the last happy day that Louis had with Gage, and then the knowledge of Gage's death was sprinkled in. I really didn't want to read a graphic depiction of the truck running him over so I liked that the book avoided that for the most part.

I HATE Rachel's family. pieces of shit. for what they did to Zelda, and how they mistreat Louis. (hide spoiler)]

[Eve]

(view spoiler)[There are more details about Gage's death after it's mentioned, so be prepared!

Haha that was a good thought about Norma though! I didn't have that thought at all when I was reading...it was a good theory!

The Zelda part...oh man. I'm kind of scared to watch the movie because reading that stuff doesn't bother me too much, but seeing it on screen would definitely freak me out! (hide spoiler)]

Vague reference to something you haven't gotten to yet, so avoid this one if you want. No details or anything:

(view spoiler)[Rachel's dad is so fucking terrible, I cannot. His behavior at the funeral had me screaming at my Kindle lmao, such an awful toxic person. (hide spoiler)]

[Rachel]

thanks for the warning :)

I wish the movie was on Netflix :( it used to be! I really wanna rewatch it! maybe ill see if the cheap movie/book store here has it lol

[Eve]

Yeah I really want to watch the movie when we're done. I saw it once when I was a teenager, but I know I slept through most of it. Literally the only thing I remember is fire...and that might have been from another movie we watched before or after it. It was at some lock-in done at my friend's church so we stayed up all night watching movies (or attempted to...obviously I did not make it all night lol)

[Eve]

Ooooh it's on both Amazon Prime and Hulu, if you have either of those!

[Eve]

I just finished! It was so good omg, definitely creepy as hell.
Planning to watch the movie tonight!

[Rachel]

I got to page 271 this morning and oh my goddddd. i'll come back and write more in a bit.

so excited for you to watch the movie lol

[Eve]

I just watched the movie!! I really enjoyed it, though I didn't really feel any tension until the last 30 minutes or so. The movie flies through the events of the book (which I mean, I guess it has to) so there wasn't much build-up. I can imagine watching it as a kid would be a lot scarier!!

I was surprised at how old Zelda looked...she looked like an adult but I thought she was supposed to be only a few years older?

Demon!Church kind of cracked me up tbh, he made a lot of the same sounds that my own demon cat makes (like, to a T) so now I'm wondering about him...

Demon!Gage was creepy with his giggling and stuff, but I laughed when (view spoiler)[Louis injects him and he just looks all sad and says "no fair!" and kind of shuffles off...I got a real kick out of that for some reason. (hide spoiler)]

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie! It was a pretty true adaptation minus a few details, but I don't think it really captured the essence of the book...not that I expected it to though, King adaptations are pretty notorious for not adequately capturing the mood. I'm glad I watched it though, and I'd definitely watch it again! Just not when I'm looking for something to scare the pants off me ;)

[Rachel]

i'm at 92%!!!!!!!

I felt bad when (view spoiler)[church died for the 2nd time lol. even though Church was evil, I guess... I just felt bad for the cat??? Did you? (hide spoiler)] I'll leave more comments in a bit (at work, so gotta do this a little discreetly lol)

[Rachel]

The book was so good...

Really frightening at times.

Loved it when Rachel drove past an exit sign for Salem's Lot!

[Eve]

(view spoiler)[I did feel kind of bad for Church, I mean yeah he was evil but he was pretty harmless aside from his hunting (hide spoiler)]

I really really loved the book!! Definitely one of my favorites by him now.

When you read The Shining, you'll have to let me know because I see a couple parallels and I have a small theory~ lol, nothing groundbreaking but more of an "I wonder" kind of thought!

btw I got my Halloween card! Thank you so much, I love it :D

[Rachel]

i got chills at the end!

I'll let you know :) I'll probably wait for the winter to read the Shining. I want the full effect of cold weather and snow!

and yay i'm glad you got it!!!!!!!!!! <3