I finally finished over Thanksgiving and have managed to catch a free moment to start a discussion. Obviously anyone is welcome.
I thought it was more frightening than some of SK's other books. Although I don't have kids and can only imagine the utter horror of watching your child die in a tragic accident, the psychology of a formerly sane person go through all of that to raise the devil in his child's body was pretty chilling. Of course the devil child going around committing murder after the fact is also a frightening image.
I think one of the better elements of this book compared to many of SK's is that it's a very accessible length, and I say this despite really liking long books in general (my average page length is around 500). But, I think sometimes SK can start to ramble and insert things that aren't really necessary, while Pet Sematary really kept moving along.
Not sure if there was something specific you wanted to discuss, but those are my initial thoughts.
I first read this in high school and the horror of losing a child was merely theoretical. This time, there were days when I had to put this book down because it was too much! That said, I scared myself far more than King scared me - I think that's part of his genius! I was dreading what would happen when Louis saw Gage again. I was imagining my own little daughter. I was terrified that Gage would appear sweet and beguiling and Louis would be torn between knowing he was evil, but not able to destroy his beloved son. King's version was anticlimactic compared to my own horrid imagination!
I first read this in high school and the horror of losing a child was merely theoretical. This time, there were days when I had to put this book down because it was too much! That said, I scared myself far more than King scared me - I think that's part of his genius! I was dreading what would happen when Louis saw Gage again. I was imagining my own little daughter. I was terrified that Gage would appear sweet and beguiling and Louis would be torn between knowing he was evil, but not able to destroy his beloved son. King's version was anticlimactic compared to my own horrid imagination!
I can definitely see how that would be. I also imagined Gage would come back sweet at first (then turn more evil with time). I had seen the movie decades ago but didn't remember it at all.
I also think the cliffhanger about what will happen to Ellie and Louis when Rachel comes back is scarier than if he had written it explicitly.
Finally, because I didn't remember Rachel's name (it's the end of the semester and I'm lucky if I remember this morning) and had to look it up, I was interested to see Cujo's name in the character list as "dog that went rabi. He is not mentioned by name but is spoken about by Jud Crandall.". That's one of the cool things about King - how he ties his books together!