Reviews with content warning for Car accident - The Shining

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

The Shining by Stephen King

40 reviews

zombiezami's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

5.0

A well crafted novel. They aren’t made quite like this anymore

Content Warnings

alaskan_bull_worm's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious sad tense slow-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

My first Stephen King book! What do I think of it?

I really liked the beginning and middle more than the end. I can’t really explain it, but I wasn’t as sucked in. I feel like I end up rushing near the end of a book just because it’s in sight.
The disembodied style of the nightmare sequences weren’t as effective as they could have been. I think the looking-into-characters’-minds had the highest quality writing. (I’m not saying King was horrible in other ways. Just that you win some, you lose some.) The huge violent scenes near the end didn’t work as well with me, is what I’m trying to say. I really don’t know why. I guess my previous point was really the “why.”
I loved the parts where we get into Jack’s mind to see his slow degrade into madness (or loss of self-control, or the hotel taking over him, whichever way you see it). It was interesting to see his perception of his father shift later on. He kind of changed the story of why his father did what he did.
I have mixed feelings about Wendy. Her personality was kind of just “mother and wife,” though she certainly was a round character. I guess it’s just that near the end we see how strong she really is (willfully, mostly) compared to her more empty threats to Jack during their relationship. I mean, Jack did lots of bad things, and she was always upset about him doing that, but she rarely did much about it. I guess I like her?
So . . . yeah? Altogether it’s a pretty good book that I guess I’d recommend. I am likely to read more King in the future.

Content Warnings

m_hates_reading's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

3/5 meh.
Took me over a month to get through, which isn’t exactly the book’s fault, but it’s not a plus either.
Again with Stephen King, I think there’s a lot of stuff towards the start that could have just not been there.

Really hated the way Wendy was written, but that’s nothing new with King.

I would have liked more focus on Danny than Jack; I get that the idea is you’re following the antagonist, and your meant to watch him loose his mind piece by piece, but it just rly wasn’t doing it for me. I just wasn’t invested in Jack’s story; possibly bc I already (more or less) knew the ending, but I think a good book is one you can know the ending to and still enjoy.

It wasn’t bad, there were things I liked. I probably would have liked the book better if there was more straight-up horror from Danny and Wendy’s perspectives (217, the fire hose, the elevator…) but again, I appreciate that’s not what King was going for with the book - he was looking for reality. “Would Jack still have done it if not for the Overlook? Was he really possessed or had he finally just snapped?”. But honestly I couldn’t care less.
Not my favourite concept wise, and I know for an absolute fact King can and has written better.

Content Warnings

msradiosilence's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

1.5

Tldr; King is blatantly misogynistic and racist in this one, I don’t fucking care if it’s a classic.

Read my full review at: https://www.rainyreader.com/single-post/the-shining/.

Content Warnings

reed_ing's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

bumble_abi's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective 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

2.5

I so wanted to love this, and I did find it reasonably enjoyable but I do feel it could have been 200 pages shorter and been just... better. I saw the film first and I definitely prefer the more in depth character study the book gives us, and I also enjoyed that the nature of the haunting of the Overlook was less abstract and more coherent, and the symbolism is much tighter, but during the last 100 pages I found myself skimming through the padding (which I think is King trying to build tension with limited success) to get to the real meat. Not enough dense emotion for my taste in horror, verbose with too much mundane filler between the scares. It was fine but if this is among King's best regarded works then I'll be sticking to other writers. Also super male gazey (Wendy is a well rounded character but her breasts are not relevant to the story, Stephen) and racist as hell.

Content Warnings