John
Being so familiar with the 1989 film, I wanted to see why this was repeatedly ranked as one of King's best novels. I can see it. This is old-school King, working through a bunch of personal shit and writing a story fully inspired by actual events from King's own life--he took a teaching job and found out that there was a pet cemetery behind the house that he'd moved into, which also happened to be situated on a way-too-busy road where his daughter was almost killed by a passing truck.
Through that, King gives us this slow-burn meditation on the power of grief, and the unthinkable things that we will do to cope with that grief.
Without giving too much away, we spend a lot of time with Louis and really get to live with him, and watch him work his way through some of the biggest moral dilemmas ever put to paper (and there is some truly disturbing stuff along the way). I found this to be quite enjoyable, but also found myself to be done with the story about 50 pages out. One of his shortest, but still felt like it could have been cut down a bit.
Being so familiar with the 1989 film, I wanted to see why this was repeatedly ranked as one of King's best novels. I can see it. This is old-school King, working through a bunch of personal shit and writing a story fully inspired by actual events from King's own life--he took a teaching job and found out that there was a pet cemetery behind the house that he'd moved into, which also happened to be situated on a way-too-busy road where his daughter was almost killed by a passing truck.
Through that, King gives us this slow-burn meditation on the power of grief, and the unthinkable things that we will do to cope with that grief.
Without giving too much away, we spend a lot of time with Louis and really get to live with him, and watch him work his way through some of the biggest moral dilemmas ever put to paper (and there is some truly disturbing stuff along the way). I found this to be quite enjoyable, but also found myself to be done with the story about 50 pages out. One of his shortest, but still felt like it could have been cut down a bit.