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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'll Never Look at Cats the Same Way Again!!, August 16, 2004
PET SEMATARY is a book that will stand the test of time. It is, of course, one of King's early novels, and we can see the author at his peek. The horrors he reveals (from family dynamics to supernatural burial grounds) are chilling enough to scare the bejesus out of the sternest of hearts!
The story revolves around the Creed family and their move from a bustling Chicago suburb to quiet Bangor, Maine, where the father (Louis) starts work as a physician. He brings with him his wife and two children (Ellie, a preteen daughter, and Gauge, a preschool boy still in diapers). The house they move into is beautiful with plenty of land for the children to play on, and a nice old neighbor couple across the "road", the Crandalls. It is this "road" that causes some immediate concern to Louis as Judd Crandall tells him about the deaths of animals caused by the big semi-trucks that blaze down its blacktop.
Judd becomes friends with the family and eventually takes them (or rather is drawn into taking them) on a small path behind the Creed's house that leads to a very special place: the PET SEMATARY. This is the place where most of the animals that'd been killed on the "road" are buried. It's a strange place with concentric circles, the shape the multiple graves make as they are laid out against the well-kept grounds. Louis and Ellie notice a large deadfall tree and Judd warns them not to climb it because it is too dangerous. But there's more to the story than that. What lay beyond the deadfall tree?
Ellie's cat, Church, is eventually killed on the "road", and Judd and Louis decide to bury the cat, but not in the PET SEMATARY; they go beyond, over the deadfall, and into a very special place known as the Micmac burial grounds, a place that has existed since the Earth began, and has the power in its soil to bring back the dead. But at what cost?
"Has anyone ever buried a human being back there?" Louis asks Judd.
"Don't even think such a thing, Louis!" Judd replies.
Church returns to the living, but is much changed. The cat smells foul, and has a very cold and evil manner about it. But at least Ellie has her cat back, right?
Eventually the "road" takes more than just an animal of the Creed's. In a horrific set of narratives, Mr. King draws us into what might happen if humans were brought back from the dead. What happens to our soul if we're brought back? Does it come with us? Or does it stay on the Micmac grounds? Or perhaps something in-between?
This book will, in every sense of the word, "freak" you out! It's terrifyingly terrific, as were many of King's earlier novels. A must read for the horror afficionado.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of his best--but very, very dark., February 25, 2000
I first read this book as a teenager--God, was it really 15 years ago? Loved it then, like it now. I must've reread it a dozen times, because the characters caught hold of me. King sketches his characters broadly but carefully, making their dialogue come alive--Jud Crandall is particularly likeable in this regard--and making their emotions ring true... Which is what makes the horror so unsettling. This is one of King's darkest works, as it deals not simply with supernatural terror, but REAL terror, like the death of a child, or the realization that people can be cruel and evil with little provocation, or the guilt that comes with hiding things. One of the effective ways King achieves his horror is in having Jud Crandall tell his stories about what happened many years before in the town of Ludlow. God, those stories, of Timmy Baterman, of Jud's own dog, wreaked havoc on my imagination as a teen; one of the very few times that simply reading has induced in me the feeling of physical fear, as if I myself might be in danger. I've read countless horror novels, and this was one of the few books to do that to me! It's not really fun. Still, I recommend "Pet Sematary" highly. It's dark and somber and very real--King playing for keeps.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"The soil of a man's heart is stonier", December 15, 2004
Louis Creed wants nothing more than the best for his family, and with this in mind he takes on a new job as a doctor at a university health center, and moves the four of them (plus the family cat "Church") to rural Maine. Upon first arriving at the new house, Louis loses his keys, his daughter Ellie stumbles and scrapes her knee, and the youngest child Gage gets a nasty bee sting. Though some might consider these bad omens, Louis and his wife Rachel shrug these incidences off and get on with their lives. Little do they know that an ancient evil lurks within the woods beyond their new home.
When Ellie's cat Church gets hit by a truck in the road over Thanksgiving, the Creed's neighbor, Jud Crandall, divulges the secret of the Micmac burial ground and it's evil properties to Louis. In a desperate attempt to keep the pain of death and loss temporarily from his daughter, Jud leads Louis out to bury Church. Though changed in somewhat inexplicable ways, Church comes back from the dead and Louis's daughter Ellie gradually learns the lesson that "sometimes dead is better." However, this particular lesson will come much later for Louis himself and his wife Rachel.
I must admit that I'm not a huge fan of King. Pet Sematary, like many of his other books, is very predictable. King even divulges much of the plot well before it happens saying things like he "now had less than two months to live." In other words, little, if anything, is left to surprise. Furthermore, the prose is somewhat less-than-eloquent. Though that does make this an extremely easy read for those looking for something simple and fun. I also found Ellie's prophetic powers to be somewhat cheesy in this particular novel.
However, all of the aforementioned quibbles aside, this tale is tolerable in that the plot is intriguing. I also enjoyed King's inquiry into the human nature as it deals with the extremely real element of death. This seems to be somewhat of a "road less traveled" for many authors, even in the horror genre. Though many reviewers seem to think that this book would have been better without a good chunk of the first half, I would tend to disagree. The first half of the book sets the stage for the way these individuals deal with death and grief, and what their opinions are on the subject, which is all too human and realistic. It's an inquiry into simple human nature. In the introduction, King explains that he was concerned he "had finally gone too far." Perhaps that is because many people, like Rachel's character in the book, would rather pretend death isn't a part of reality and thus would not like to have it shoved in their faces.
King also notes in his introduction that "'sometimes dead is better' is grief's last lesson....That lesson suggests that in the end, we can only find peace in our human lives by accepting the will of the universe." All grudges with King's books aside, this is a worthwhile lesson to be learned, and I enjoyed reading his ponderings on the subject and the way in which they were presented in this novel.
This book is definitely worth a read. Though the movie adaptation sticks quite well to the majority of the plot, the intricacies are left out (as is the case with many movie adaptations). If you read one Stephen King book, this should be it.
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