The Shining by Stephen King

 Review: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

    I actually really enjoyed this book!  I liked how it focused so much more on the shine than the movie.  The story was exhilarating and full of action, and full of Jack's battle with alcoholism and tension within the family.  While in the movie, Jack's character was unlikable from the beginning, being and angry man who insulted his wife, the book portrayed the man as a more sympathetic man who genuinely sought to improve his alcoholism and loved his family; there was a greater contrast in Jack when he was and wasn't possessed by the spirit of the Overlook Hotel.

    I also really loved the characters.  Danny was emotionally intelligent due to his shine and was therefore extremely aware of his parents' situation.  It was heartbreaking to see 5 year old Danny attempt to grasp the concept of divorce and murder, knowing the horrors of what would happen at the Overlook, but not having the words to describe it.  Wendy was a lovely lady who was so stuck in life, that leaving her husband meant being free from the potential that Jack was drunkenly abusing Danny, but proving her emotionally abusive mother right and being poor.  Staying with her husband meant financial stability, love, a happy family, but the risk of Jack getting drunk and ruining it all.  She has to live her life walking on egg shells.  Jack, as I mentioned, is a complicated man.  He genuinely strives to be a good father and husband, and a successful writing career.  However, he has a fatal flaw of becoming an angry and potentially violent man when drinking.  All three of the protagonists were complex and well developed characters and it was hard to pick a "good guy" and a "bad guy" because they were all morally good.

    I also loved how scary it was.  I thought the movie was spooky, but holy cow.  The ending when Danny pleads with his possessed father to spare him because he loves him, and Jack using the last of his will to tell Danny to remember how much he loves him and to run away; wow.  Immediate tears.  Then following the heartbreaking farewell with Jack being completely possessed and killing himself (Jack) by smashing his own face in with a splintered mallet, leaving only the body to be controlled by the Overlook Hotel, I was HORRIFIED.  I liked both the movie and book endings but this was insane.

    The only thing I didn't like about this book was how long it was.  I liked how detailed it was but sometimes it got to a point where it felt like the book was trying to meet a certain page count.

But other than that, I absolutely loved the book.

Summary

    Jack Torrance was recently fired from his job as a high school english teacher.  His family is plunged into (near) poverty until he comes along a unique job opportunity: to be the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel.  Jack is ecstatic, and he, Danny, and Wendy head to the hotel.  They get a tour from the manager and meet Dick Hallorann, the hotel cook who seemed to deeply resonate with Danny.  He tells him that he has "the shine", a supernatural power to empathize so deeply with the memories and people around him, that he can see them.  He tells the kid to stay away from hotel room 217 as it had an unknown energy that was dangerous to people who shine.  After he leaves, the family begins their stay.

    A few weeks into the stay, strange things begin to happen.  While playing outside, Danny sees the hedge animals outside moving.  Jack Torrance becomes obsessed over the history of the Overlook Hotel and the serial family murders that the previous caretakers carried out and spends sleepless nights writing a book.  Danny wakes up in the night screaming.  And they are locked in the house due to the terrible snow storm, and the weather causes their radio to go down, completely cutting them off from the outside world.

    As time goes on, things get weirder.  Jack begins hallucinating and sleep-walking, to the point that he attempts to physically assault Wendy and Danny in his sleep.  Danny appears with a strangulation mark on his neck.  Danny's visions get scarier and gorier.  Wendy senses the danger and the danger that the hotel itself poses to kids like Danny. 

    However, when she attempts to escape with Danny (and find help for Jack), Jack appears with a croquet mallet and chases after her.  The chase leads to a bloody fight, ending with Jack having broken Wendy's ribs, Wendy stabbing him with a kitchen knife, and knocking him out with the mallet.  During the battle, a horrified Danny telepathically sends Dick Hallorann an SOS signal to beg him to help him and his mom escape the Overlook.  As Dick heads to the hotel, Wendy and Danny hide Jack in the walk-in fridge to keep him safely caged until they can get help.  However, when Jack wakes up, he is met with a hallucination of the previous hotel caretaker's ghost who torments him to punish his family before setting him free from the fridge.  The rage from being caged by his family and the possession turns Jack into a homicidal maniac, chasing Wendy through the halls of the hotel.

    However, in the nick of time, Dick comes to the rescue.  But the heroic act doesn't last long.  Before long, Jack beats him to a pulp with his mallet and returns to kill Danny.  When he catches him, Danny cries in horror and begs his dad to come back.  For a moment, the real Jack comes back; just long enough to tell his son that he loves him, before the spirit of the hotel reposesses him and forces his body to kill himself.  In this raw, possessed state, Jack (a.k.a. the Overlook Hotel) chases the family, when the boiler of the hotel suddenly explodes, causing the building to go up in flames.  The violent fire traps him in the hotel, and Jack dies in the hotel, as Wendy, Danny, and Dick escape on a snowmobile.