Hey, guys!
I finally finished Pet Sematary by Stephen King. I just . . . wow.
Here's a good comparison. For those of you who have read The Shining, take that and put it to the fifteenth power. That's how badly this book messes with your mind. Maybe even more.
Louis Creed is a University doctor who has moved from the Midwest to Ludlow, Maine with his family: his wife, Rachel; his five-year-old daughter, Ellie; his infant son, Gage; the family cat, Church.
Their new house resides on the side of Route 15, which almost always has eighteen wheelers barreling down it. It's also across Route 15 from Jud Crandall, a kindly old neighbor who lives with his wife, Norma.
The house is also right near the pet cemetery - otherwise known as the Pet Sematary - where the local kids have been burying their pets since the 1920s. Pets who have been run over on Route 15.
Just like Ellie's cat was run over on Thanksgiving night while she, Rachel, and Gage are in Chicago with the grandparents. Only Louis is at home, spending Thanksgiving Day with Jud and Norma.
That's when Jud decides to do something for Louis, kind of like a favor. Knowing that Ellie will be heart-broken to know that her beloved Church is dead - and possibly traumatized at an age when she is just learning about death - Louis doesn't tell her when she calls from Chicago, and instead follows Jud beyond the Pet Sematary.
There, Church is buried in the Micmac burying ground. This is a place that people have known about (and feared) for decades. A place where people have buried their own pets up there before. Pets. God help the poor fool who buries a loved one, a person, at the Micmac burying ground.
The next day, Church returns. But he's different. As though he's neither dead nor alive. Some kind of an unnatural limbo. Everyone can sense it besides Louis, but it's just beyond their ability to grasp exactly what is wrong with Church.
And the Micmac burying ground has changed Louis as well, just like it changed Jud when he buried his pet dog up there as a kid. It plants a seed of insanity there. The burying ground calls to whomever visits there, prompts them to share the dirty secret that is the burying ground.
So what does this mean for the rest of Louis Creed's family?
If I were to reveal that, the rest of the book would be ruined, and I just can't do that.
For once, I will not prompt you guys to read or not to read this book. That is the question . . . yes, I did just do that. Anyway, as I was saying, this book is messed up. No holds barred creepy. It touches on every single sensitive spot that there is. I do not recommend it for the weak of stomach or for the weak of heart.
If you don't want to read this book, I don't blame you. But if you love horror, have at it. This book takes the sanctity and purity of life and dirties it to teach a lesson that life is holy and that to mess with that is to mess with the order of things.
So, as Paul McCartney puts it, "live and let die."
That's it for this post. I'm going to wait a few hours before I pick up Life of Pi again, because it is way too much of a contrast for me to deal with. But that review is up and coming. I'm about 80% of the way through the book according to my Kindle Fire.
Until next time, guys.
Happy reading!!
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