Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

254 reviews

cwgonzales's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Wasn’t expecting to be so annihilated by

the death of a small child that doesn’t heed a parent’s call to stop running before getting plastered to the road by a truck

. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Child death, Grief, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

luisaveras's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Animal death, Body horror, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Medical content, Sexual content, Murder, and Chronic illness

Minor: Cultural appropriation

gethin_burke's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Animal death, Blood, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing and Sexual content

kathleenwho's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

3 stars because, like any other King novel, I could not put it down. Only 3 because this is maybe my least favourite so far - the build-up was suspenseful and well-written, but very long compared to the climax, which was a bit disappointing and cringey.  

There is a lot of outdated language and ideas with regards to Native American cultures, disability, and chronic and terminal illness - mostly in-character for the time and culture of the story, but still jarring. 

Particularly strong book for King's weird horny comparisons that seem completely inappropriate, e.g.

describing hills in a graveyard while the main character is digging up his son's grave as being "as natural and beautiful as a woman's breasts."

.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Blood, Chronic illness, Cultural appropriation, Medical content, Terminal illness, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

ashmash's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

So boring. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Animal death

madventure_time's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Child death

cursedepub's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Echoing another reviewer - I had kind of brushed this book aside as I am not generally interested in animal-oriented stories in any genre, nor do I particularly care for zombies in horror. But I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by how simply GOOD this novel was. King's prose is excellent, very immersive and evocative but still neat and tight, without bloat. 

I find the greatest strength of the book to be the sheer power and punch of the story's emotional beats.  I am not typically scared by horror but I connected very strongly with the depictions of dread in the early part of the novel

(Paxcow's death and Creed's succeeding nighttime stroll, the sense of wrongness and hints of possible deception or ill intent from Jud)

. And the reveal that

Gage would die in less than 2 months

literally knocked the wind out of me - what a perfect set-up of emotional high to emotional low. The sheer human ugliness and depth of the family's

grief

afterwards is genuinely gutting. 

At the end of the day the true horror of the book is in the fact that it is a tragedy, and like all the best tragedies, you simply cannot look away.

Like Creed himself,

you try to convince yourself up to the very end that maybe things will be different this time, but you probably already know how this story will end. 

I do find the actual Pet Sematary to be kind of underutilized by simply being the "front door," so to speak, to the true cemetery. The lore and mysticism could have been better-developed. However, truly a great and standout horror novel. I get the hype now.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Animal death, and Child death

raincloud's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, and Animal death

pholcidae's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Aside from the casual racism (using outdated terms for Native American people and unnecessarily bringing people’s skin colour to attention), a near-flawless book.

The story is paced perfectly and I have been reading it nonstop. The author’s use of language to create suspense and terror is reminiscent of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

This was my first King novel and I think it was the perfect one to start on! Very tense and lots of fun easter eggs in there :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Cultural appropriation, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Animal death, Child death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Gore, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Sexual content, Medical trauma, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Murder, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Mental illness

Moderate: Cannibalism, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Self harm, Abandonment, Infidelity, and Cursing

Minor: Vomit, Cancer, War, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Excrement, Dementia, Misogyny, Sexism, Addiction, Antisemitism, Domestic abuse, Incest, and Religious bigotry

drybay's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Horror hasn't been my genre, but this book might have changed that. The horror setting was just a place to handle the themes of loss and grief which was done beautifully. Also the slowly built suspence was great. A really good book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, Grief, Blood, Child death, and Murder

Moderate: Medical content and Colonisation