Laura Chapman 's Reviews > The Shining / 'Salem's Lot / Carrie

Three Stephen King novels that I thought I’d already read, as I have almost everything he’s written, but which as I began this book I realised I’d only previously read ‘Salem’s Lot, not The Shining or Carrie - I’d only watched the films... so glad I’ve rectified this now!

Carrie - least favourite of the three. I’m not sure why. I preferred the film with Sissy Spacek, not the travesty that came out a few years ago.

‘Salem’s Lot - Just brilliant in every way. Ominous, scary, melancholy, sad, but never feels overdone. I think this is the longest in the book but it didn’t feel that way, it flew by.

The Shining- I absolutely love the film and I enjoyed this even more. The creeping sense of dread as a man, and to a lesser extent everyone around him, descends into a slow and torturous decline of madness, despair, jealousy, paranoia, failure and extreme violence is so well handled. It’s an outright masterpiece. I can understand why King doesn’t like the film version after reading this, as it changes too much of the content and doesn’t really examine what drove Jack to madness and the overall influence of the hotel itself to affect people’s minds and bend and warp them to its sinister will. It’s the most important character in the novel.