My rating: 5/5 stars
There are periods when I simply forget my love for horror books, because there are hundreds of other genres that tempt me. Enter Stephen King who always reminds me where I belong in the bookish world. Even though horror movies scare me to death, the books not so much, because my imagination is having mild versions of the happenings, which put me at ease when my pulse is going crazy. So even if I read a bloody scene, I try to imagine other things, beside the obvious blood involved. 🙂
“Pet Sematary” was a wild book for me, which fascinated me but also annoyed me because of the main topic. I am not kidding, I was very mad at Louis, the main character and totally agreed with the words of the book “Sometimes dead is better“. I’ll explain in a bit what sparked this temper of mine.
Louis Creed gets a job as a faculty campus doctor and moves with his wife Rachel and 2 kids, Gage and Ellie, to Lodlow, Maine. Oh, forgot about the cat. 🙂 They also have a cat named Winston Churchill, aka Church. 🙂 Their life here is different, being a new scenario, but they want to start fresh, so here they go. The area is pretty impressive, with mountains and old houses, but the main road is the problem, being constantly driven by trucks and buses which have business in the area. Their only friends are their neighbors, Jud and Norma, to whom they became close very soon after moving here. In a Sunday stroll, they discover the “pet sematary” which is basically an old cemetery where kids took their house pets after passing away. It’s a very creepy place, with an odd vibe, which gives you the creeps, so they decided to not revisit it for the time being. Or never 🙂
No spoilers here, because the whole plot can be put into one sentence, but after this, things will not be ok. Louis will be forced to do some things out of grief and tragedy, things which will lead to other tragic things. The book is not very proportioned, to say the least, because even if it’s divided into 3 parts, you practically have 2 introductions which sum like 450 pages and one ending of 50 pages. 🙂 Not no say about the cliffhanger, I hope it dies. 🙂
It seems like Stephen King knows you and knows your weaknesses, because he drives you crazy scary until the last words in the book. He knows when to deliver a blow and has that “criminal” timing which is amazing. He knows his audience and its soft places, leading to a very good read. He likes to do his research and loves old themes and besides that, religion is his motto, because mainly all of the book has its roots there. It makes you wonder and reflect about the way the characters acted and compare it to the “good religious ways”. The answer is more than visible, but that particular thinking time is gold for the readers, because the action is making them reflect about some important aspects. Not all of them are applicable in real life, but the question is there: “If you were to be in Louis case, would you follow this through?“. And the answer kills you, because maybe you don’t have a clear one. It sounds very philosophical, but it’s really there.
“Pet Sematary” it’s a real book experience from top to bottom, full of emotions, anger, fear and pain. It really takes a toll of you and makes you wonder a lot. It opened my appetite for similar books but it also tired me, having a very heavy plot to digest and understand.
This is not your average horror story, mark my words 🙂 And oh, Church scared the life out of me. :)))
Ramonisme 