Pet Sematary by Stephen King is an intense tale about family and how far someone will go to bring things back to “normal.”

I have been hearing that this is by far Mr. King’s most terrifying novel. With the latest movie adaptation out now, I finally had the time to pick this one up.

When I began reading this novel, I really enjoyed the calm and semi-slow beginning. This really introduces the reader to the characters, their relationships with one another, the neighbors, and the setting in a wonderful way.

While things seem to be sailing long smoothly, there is suddenly a scene that’s wicked gruesome. When I hit that scene, which was certainly a bit disturbing, it was also heart-poundingly interesting! During that, I was totally engaged and read as fast as I could to see what was going to happen.

After that, the tale slows again, but the creep factor begins to build. It happens slowly at first, but as the tale goes on, it gets more and more intense while the reader begins dreading what will happen next.

The creepiness and dread continues to build right up to the end, which plays out as many readers may be able to predict, but it is alarming nonetheless.

One of my favorite elements of this book was the family dynamics. Like I said at the top, this was a tale about how far a family member is willing to go… They weren’t a perfect family, that’s for sure. But the family of four really cared about one another.

My favorite character was definitely their neighbor who lived across the street, Jud. He was your stereotypical older Maine gentleman who sits on his porch drinking beer and telling stories into the night. I really enjoyed how quickly he became family to the crew when they moved in.

Throughout the story, Jud was the one that told the really horrific tales to get both the reader and the main character, Louis, up to speed with the history of the area, what can go wrong, and other such things. My heart broke over the things that Jud had to tell and relive, as well as the things that he had to live through over the course of this story.

This tale also had a strong supernatural element to it that I found really interesting and a bit terrifying. Per usual, some of it was only mentioned vaguely, which I think helps add to the mystery and terror!

My favorite passages:
…the fearbone, like the funnybone, is located in different places on different people.

I don’t think children ever forget the lies their parents tell them.

Louis Creed was no psychiatrist, but he knew that there are rusty, half-buried things in the terrain of any life and that human being seen compelled to go back to these things and pull at them, even though they cut.

My final thoughts:
While I did really enjoy this one and thought that many parts were quite creepy… This one just didn’t rank very high on terror level for me. Perhaps that is simply because I had very high horror expectations of this.

Even so, I still thought that this was an awesome read! There were many instances where I couldn’t stop reading because I was hooked!

I will very likely reread this one and I would highly recommend it to other that don’t mind a bit of gore! However, if you have children, this one may be more difficult for you, so a word of caution there.