Book Review: "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King

I have read so much Stephen King in my time. I think the very first Stephen King novel I read was when I was about thirteen and it was “Carrie”. After that, I read books like “Christine” and the terrifyingly good “Salem’s Lot”. Then came books like “From a Buick 8” and “Gerald’s Game”. I have, of course enjoyed books such as “It” and “The Green Mile” (after obviously, watching the movies and before you ask, the movie I watched to “It” was the Tim Curry version). We have books such as “Misery” (which is one of my favourites) and “The Shining” (which I remember thoroughly frightening me) - I read “Under the Dome” a year or so after it came out and then “Cujo” in the following summer. But, unfortunately, after all this and so much more - I never actually got around to finishing “Pet Sematary”. I had read it in parts, but I realised I had never actually completed the book. This amazed me and I proceeded to get a copy and read it immediately. I now understand why, at only fifteen, I never actually ended up completing the book at all. Not only did it upset me, but it seriously scares the life out of you.

A family with two young children and a dog move to a town where there is a man and his wife living near them. The couple who parent the children are called Louis and Rachel and the couple who live near them are Jud and Norma. The children: Ellie and Gage, have a pet dog called Church and obviously, there is always something up in a Stephen King novel - so one day Jud takes everyone on a walk. Jud takes the family to a cemetery (spelt: sematary) where the children of the town bury their dead pets. After a while, things start to happen. Louis wakes up in the morning with his feet covered in mud and leaves after being led in his dreams to the ‘real’ cemetery by a deceased man he hardly knew in life. Rachel takes the kids to her parents and that is when the sadness really unfolds. Jud mentions that there was once a World War 2 soldier who died in battle and was resurrected some how. Things were never the same. After trial and grievous error, things turn from bad to worse to absolutely terrifying in a novel that many people who have read it call ‘the scariest book ever written.’

In my opinion, yes it is very frightening and very upsetting. But, it also has the Stephen King atmosphere which just makes the book even scarier if you ask me. There is something about the cemetery that you feel like you don’t really want to know and the more you know, the more you are drawn into what is going to happen in the story, to Louis and his family, next. There are things in this book that will seriously haunt you and if you don’t like the sound of animals dying then wait until you get a load of the second half of “Pet Sematary” - because things much worse happen within those pages.

In conclusion, I can honestly say that this is one of the most frightening Stephen King books I have ever read and I am not going to lie to you, I could not bring myself to read the whole thing in one sitting. Maybe fifteen year old me was right, maybe there was a reason I never made it to the end the last time I picked it up over ten years’ ago now.