A review by anakaur
Pet Sematary by Stephen King

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

 This was my first Stephen King... And I must say, I'm so impressed. 

Since this was one of his older books I was worried it would be really outdated and slow. The plot easy to follow, the characters were written well, there wasn't an overbearing amount of description (like in It). 

I did have a problem with how Indigenous peoples and their practices were talked about in the book. I guess that could be chalked up to the publishing date. I just thought that some of the dialogue was insensitive but that could be just be me being overly sensitive. 

At the core it is a relatable story on grief and how a family copes. The lengths they are willing to go to avoid heartache and the inevitable. 

I followed along some sections with the audiobook read by Michael C. Hall and I highly recommend. 

Although I didn't agree with Louis's choices of trying to bring back his son I did understand. 
I did think the ending wrapped up too fast with Gage killing Rachel and so Louis kills him and burns the house down. On this one rare occasion I wanted Kings book to be longer. I wanted a little bit of tension of having the demon child live with the family for a little bit. 
Honestly that's just nitpicking, the obscure ending of the zombie Rachel putting her hand on Louis was chilling.