The Shining

Today I bring you the review of a book that I had been putting aside for a long time and that, as I told you in one of my previous posts, took me out of a reading slump: The Shining, written by Stephen King.

In this horror and suspense book, King tells us the story of a family with numerous personal problems, where Jack Torrance, the father, was a well-respected literature teacher until he became addicted to alcohol and assaulted one of his students, for which he was fired. Because of his addiction, Jack has serious problems controlling his temper, both with strangers and with his family. In turn, Wendy, Jack's wife and Danny's mother, is a housewife and lives in constant fear of something happening to her son.... More specifically, his biggest fear is that Jack will hurt their kid. Finally there is Danny Torrance, the youngest in the family, who has the particularity of having a gift through which he can read other people's thoughts, and even has a kind of "imaginary friend" named Tony.

One day, Jack receives a job offer as a janitor during the winter season at the old Overlook Hotel, which is located high in the mountains and is completely isolated by snow storms. Thus, the Torrance family embarks on a journey to the Overlook, which King is also responsible for letting the reader know that it is a hotel with a "life of its own" and that over the years it has witnessed numerous violent crimes committed within its walls. There Danny meets the cook, an African-American named Dick Halloran, who shares the same gift as Danny for reading other people's thoughts, a skill Halloran calls "the shining" and which Danny, despite his young age, seems to have developed to unknown limits, so the hotel will try to profit from it to commit who knows how many more crimes.

"The Shining" is a book that makes the reader unable to even imagine how the story will end, because the outcome is just amazing. However, it seems to me that Stephen King is a bit of a sinner in using so many metaphors to convey the characters' thoughts, as I feel that this makes the narrative go out of step and make the story longer than it should be. In spite of this, I think some of the metaphors were quite well used so that the reader could get to know the characters in depth.

And it is precisely this aspect of the novel that I liked the most: each of the characters has such a unique and unmistakable personality that it makes the reader feel closer to them and establishes a kind of sentimental relationship between the reader and the characters that will make it almost impossible to take the eyes off the book. In addition, King was able to describe perfectly how they are transformed as the hotel exerts its tireless pressure on the protagonists.

I don't usually get carried away by the emotions when I read, that is, it's a bit difficult for me to cry or feel fear when I read something... but this book was simply frightening for me, not because it's full of bloody and unpleasant scenes, as many people think, but because of the creepy way it describes human psychology, our desires, our motivations and our darkest thoughts. In addition, King manages to portray in a very realistic way the addiction of alcoholism, fear and the supernatural capacities that the human brain has to make us see, think and/or believe things that escape from reality.

It is a book that I recommend 100%, because it does not disappoint and I promise you will have a good time hooked and with heart in hand, hahahaha.