I’m fairly new to the world of Stephen King. I had always wanted to read The Shining and once I did it sparked something and I ended up scouring book swaps and charity shops for copies of King’s books. As someone who reads a lot of business books and self-help stuff this was really a change of pace for me.
Let me start this review of Pet Sematary by saying I have never seen any of the film adaptations of this book nor did I know anything going into it. Nothing except the alarming looking book cover of the black cat who we will learn is Church, the Creed family’s cat. Oh and the title does a pretty good job of conveying what we might encounter.
Church dies in an accident and the Creeds learn that they have moved in right next to an ancient burial ground, good start right?
Stephen King’s Scariest Book?
I heard this was one of Stephen King’s scariest books and something inside me wanted to read it. If there had been a dog on the cover I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. What am I getting myself into is what I asked myself as I cracked the spine.
Reading the first chapters of this book poolside eased me into it and I thought, this isn’t too bad, the picture of rural Maine painted in my mind with the help of Google images and Pinterest. We meet the Creed family: Louis, Rachel and their two kids Ellie and Gage as they make the big move from Boston.
Louis works at the University as a and although some of his patient encounters early in the book where graphic, it was nothing that really bothered me too much.
Halfway Through
Once I got halfway into the book things started to change pace and each page got under my skin. Several times I considered placing it back on my bookshelf, at the back, behind a cheery Funko Pop. But on I read, the cold night air blowing past my cheeks as Louis and Jud made the trip through the Pet Sematary up to the burial ground, each twig on the ground grazing my leg.
King is so descriptive in this work that even observations that Louis has as a Doctor as sometimes hard hitting. I could feel the ick as Church freshly back from the dead brushed past him, the stench, the weird look.
On I read…. when we get to the root of Rachel’s traumatic childhood is when I really started to feel disgusted, creeped out, skin crawling. In my mind I was seeing scenes of The Exorcist 😳
Should I stop reading? Now the suggestions of where this story was going had my mind racing. Why did I choose this as a nighttime read?
During the funeral of Norma, Jud’s wife, I couldn’t help but relive some things…. things I wanted to forget and keep tucked away in a draw. King’s words will do that.
A single sentence at the end of part one made me say “WTF?” out loud. Later on I was telling my husband the story so far. When I said the words I realized just how messed up this book is and the foreshadowing is far beyond the family cat turning into a zombie.
Part Two Gets Under Your Skin
Part Two is where I felt a rush to read the pages to see what would happen next but also where I had to stop reading this book. I’m sorry Mr King but I’m adding Pet Sematary to my DNF pile.
My imagination ran WILD and I won’t spoil it for you but what happens in the second part of the book is probably going to be make or break for you. It wasn’t anything supernatural that scared me and made me shut the book with a snap. It was the raw human grief leaking through the pages, poking painfully.
So if Stephen King ever comes across this review of Pet Sematary, Sir, you’re writing is incredible, just a bit too incredible.
My next read will be a palette cleanser for sure….
