Book 3 of The Stephen King Challenge and my third time reading The Shining. There’s a reason it’s considered one King’s very best. It has everything that makes a book great. Great characters that have many layers to them and we invest in. One spooky, desolate location that oozes evil. A nice, tight storytelling that builds tension without filler. To steal a often-used line from old rock stars describing their latest album – It’s All Killer and No Filler.
For me, watching the overtaking of Jack by the Overlook was the part of the story that made the biggest impact. The man is flawed. He becomes an alcoholic, breaks his son’s arm in a drunken rage, loses his job, close to losing his marriage. The man is at the bottom…or is he? Can it get any worse? Oh yes, yes it can. With all of the stress of the aforementioned problems along with dragging his family across the country in a last ditch effort to climb out of the gutter, all while battling being on the wagon, seems so overwhelming to me. Now, throw in that nasty business of the evil hotel twisting and turning everything against him, and I really do feel for the guy. And that’s just one charcter in the story!
You’ll have to excuse my assumption that you already know the basic premise of The Shining. I won’t bore you with reading the same old synopsis. For those of you that don’t know anything about the story, I’ll let you read one of the other reviews to fill yourself in. All you really need to know that it’s simply one of Stephen King’s best and most iconic stories and the guy didn’t get to be famous and sell a bazillion books in what has always been the biggest red-headed step-child section of the literary field – Horror – by writing clunkers. If you haven’t read The Shining, you need to. Not before the end of the year. Not next month or next week. Now. Right now. Quit reading this review and get your butt downloading it or grabbing a copy of it. Pick your poison – eReader, paperback or hardcover. But do it now!
5 out of 5 stars and only because I couldn’t rate it 6 stars
You can also follow my reviews at the following links:
https://kenmckinley.wordpress.com
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5919799-ken-mckinley
http://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/A2J1JOKW56F2YT
TWITTER – @KenMcKinley5
Into The Macabre 
I am actually in the middle of reading this right now! It’s my first Stephen King book and so far so good. [:
Well you couldn’t have picked a better one to start off with. It has everything that makes King great. I hope this isn’t your last!