Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Perfection!
Master Horror writer shows himself in top form with "THE SHINING" his third book, and one of his best. (I personally think BAG OF BONES, THE SHINING and CARRIE define him--of course, those are the only ones I've actually read...)
This novel is about a hotel called the OVERLOOK, and with the large hotel comes its large and bizzare history. Many murders and deaths have occured there, but nevertheless recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance accepts the job of being the Overlook's caretaker over the winter. He needs money, and desperately after he lost his job from an incident that occured when he was drunk. Moving into the hotel with him is his wife, Wendy and his son, Danny. Danny sees scary visions of what's at the Overlook, namely REDRUM, but he still goes there.
Creepy occurances follow in this highly suspenseful, you-can't-put-it-down novel. I read it over a spanning of about two weeks, but someone easily could pick this up in the morning and read it through. I'd reccommend this book for ages thirteen and up. Lots of sexual content and terms that some smaller readers might not be able to comprehend.
This book did give me one or two nights where visions of a dead lady in a bathtub and a man in a dog suit danced around my brain. You will never forget this book, but-- you'll remember the Overlook and its spirits even more.
Rating:  - A book filled with moments of startling horror and vividness
THE SHINING, the fifth bestselling horror novel by Stephen King, is ultimately
a novel which, in its final moments, manages to transcend
its strange prose mixture of pulp magazine-type chills and Lovecraftian horror
imagery to deal with deeper concepts, such as the enduring legacy of evil and
parental love. Set during a cold, icy winter in a Colorado Hotel, King constantly
switches his point of view between various narrators- the caretaker, a failed writer
named Jack Torrance who is combating alcoholism, his wife, Wendy, and their
young son, Danny, who has a peculiar supernatural ability to see visions of terror.
The hotel, The Overlook, is haunted by various ghosts- the spirits of the suicides,
the murdered, those who died in strange ways, and, as the winter goes on, these ghosts
begin to drive Jack Torrance insane, finally leading him to wage a terrifying game of
cat-and-mouse with the others in the hotel.
And only his son, Danny, who can see the cause
of the carnage in the visions he recieves, can put an end to his father's rampage.
Unfortunately, King takes too long to set up his exposition, and when the shocks finally come,
they burst too rapidly together to allow the reader to fully absorb the impact of what
exactly is happening. A good book in concept, but the pacing, as described above,
is slightly flawed. Another masterwork from a genious in his field.
Rating: - Truly Scarey
This book is so good, I have read it three times. Stephen King, the undisputed master of horror and suspense does not leave any dissapointment with this book. You will read it, be scared, and read it again. What is interesting is that so many people have only seen the Jack Nicholson/Stanley Kubrick movie version, which is good, but this book does so much more. The setting, a remote resort. The characters, a father, a mother, and a young son. These characters are left to tend to a large hotel during the winter season and make sure things are fine when the hotel opens up the following spring for business. Remote and isolated, the hotel becomes a prison for the father, and he begins to torment his wife. All this happens while the young son, Danny, starts seeing and speaking to ghosts. The hotel figuratively and literally starts to close in on the Torrence family. That is when all hell breaks loose. For the rest of the story, I would suggest reading this book, with a warning; expect to be scared.
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