I just finished this book at 3:00 this morning. I couldn't put it down. But I can't decide if it's a good book or not in spite of its ability to lure me in so completely. It was a horrible, frightening, gory, disgusting and morbid book. But that is the intent isn't it? So I guess that makes it a good book.
From the beginning of Pet Sematary
, when the cat is resurrected, I thought how similiar the story is to The Monkey's Paw
(which I read in a High School English class). Evidently King thought the same thing...or maybe it influenced this book...but he mentions The Monkey's Paw
a couple of times in the later parts of the book.The book is about a couple and their two children who move to Maine. They don't realize that they their new home is adjacent to an old indian gravesite whose spirits have the power to pull victims unto itself. The "gravesite" (nothing stays buried there) is beyond a plot that local children have tended for the last hundred years called Pet Sematary
.The father, Louis, is first introduced to the indian gravesite by his neighbor Jed. Jed takes him there after Louis' young daughter's cat is hit on the highway. Louis knows she will be devestated and is afraid for his death-neurotic wife. But Jed has the answer to his dilemma. They take the dead cat up to the indian burial ground and bury him. The next day Church (the cat) is back. But he's different. He's not quite all there, and he's meaner. He stinks of the grave, but Louis is happy to not have to break the news of his death to his family.
Jed warns Louis of past stories of people who have used the burial ground with ill results. He also warns him that "they" will call back those who have been there, to come back and continue to feed it. And even knowing the danger--the urgency to return is so strong, it can pull it's victims to return while repelling those who wish to intervene...
Mass Market Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Pocket (February 1, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743412273
ISBN-13: 978-0743412278
My Rating: 4/5
It was so good in such a bad and terrible way! :)
Customer Ratings: 4.5/5
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Pet Sematary was the first Stephen King book I read, and it happened when I was maybe 12...this is the book that got me hooked on him and I continued to read numerous different books of his. I don't really remember much about it...and looking back, if I reread it now, I'm not sure it'd classify as a 'good' book even. It certainly captured my young mind, though, and took me on a journey as I entered the other realms of his books. Nice review.
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