KJ's Book Reviews

  The Shining Written by Stephen King About 560 pages (mass market paper back ed.) Originally published in 1977 Rate 4/5 This is the second book my Themes in Literature class is reading. So far we have only covered Carrie ( hover over this to check out my book review for Carrie ). Though this story has been referenced in the media many times throughout my existence, I tried to avoid it at all costs because I wasn't a fan of horror. Junior year of high school I took a film studies class. The "here's Johnny" scene was briefly mentioned and I was so scared. After reading the book, I now realize how exaggerated my feelings about this story were. I haven't watched the movie and maybe if I did then I would side with my younger self, but right now I feel a little embarrassed. The book wasn't that scary. What is The Shining about? Jack Torrance has recently been fired. One of his good friends gets him a job at The Outlook Hotel, his job is to look after the hotel for...

  Carrie Written by Stephen King About 290 pages Originally published in 1974 Rate 4.5/5 This is the first time I have ever finished reading a horror book. Back when I was in elementary school, my peers read "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark". When I tried to read a couple of the stories in that book, I felt terrified and I remembered the stories for too long after so I stopped reading.  This year I decided to take a course called 'Themes in Literature'. This course focuses on Stephen King's stories. I knew what the course was about before hand, and I knew that I had never felt great about reading ghost stories, but I wanted to read some of King's work. Carrie is the first book the class is reading. We have a set required list, nine books in total so there will be an abundance of Stephen King's books on here in the near future. I had, of course, seen clips from the 2013 Carrie movie on social media and was intrigued. I was planning on reading Carrie b...