Pet Sematary

 

I don't think I have to explain the plot of this one, but just in case you've never heard of this book (have you been living under a rock? JK) Here is the summary (from Amazon)

When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow’s tranquility, an undercurrent of danger exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creed’s beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thing…as is evidenced by the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard where another burial ground lures with seductive promises and ungodly temptations. A blood-chilling truth is hidden there—one more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. As Louis is about to discover for himself sometimes, dead is better…

There's also been several movies and adaptations. The first movie was creepy in all it's 80's glory and I liked it. I never got the urge to read the book until just recently though. The movies were good but nothing special, but the book. OH MAN! The book was so so much better! I loved how absolutely creepy the book was. From start to finish the sense of foreboding just kept mounting up. From the books I knew the basic premise of the story, but I didn't let that taint my reading experience. 

In the movies, the main characters were just kind of there. I didn't really get to know them all that much. Louis and Rachel were just kind bleh (in the films), but in the book they were fleshed out and their actions felt real. I felt their choices and actions were at least understandable. In the films it just felt like they just acted without any reason...well there was a reason but their actions didn't make much sense. 

I'm trying NOT to be very spoilery in this review, but with the movies and it being such an old book I doubt this will be that big of a spoiler. When Louis' daughter's cat Church dies, his neighbor Jud shows him a pet cemetery and then moves further along in the woods to show him a different cemetary...a very very different one. They bury the cat, the cat comes back and the cat is very very wrong. 

Any rational and normal human would have put that demon spawn hell beast back into the ground where it belongs, but Louis loved his daughter and his daughter loved the cat...so he doesn't. Even knowing that it came back so not normal. 

So when he does the thing that he does, it's with that knowledge. It might not work, but it just might work too. The choice is clear. In the movie, I didn't get the same sense that Louis was slowly slipping into madness but in the book it was crystal clear and it made it so much more tense and heartbreaking all at the same time!

I loved the book from start to finish, if you haven't guessed by now. I'm slowly working my way through as much Stephen King as I can for the rest of this year and I am super excited! 

I gave Pet Sematary 4.5 out of 5