howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

 

I've been meaning to read this book for ages after growing up on the 1989 film adaptation, and I'm so glad I finally did. Yes, of course, "the book is always better", but this is one of those cases where the film barely scratched the surface of all the novel had to offer. The lore behind the burial grounds, Louis' reasoning, old Jud's stories — all of it was fleshed out ten times more in this book than the film could have hoped for, and it made Pet Sematary a surprisingly believable story, somehow.

I have an old, battered copy of this book I found at a yard sale years ago, but when I found out Michael C. Hall (of Dexter fame) was the narrator for the audiobook, I had to check it out, and he did such an incredible job. The voices and accents brought a ton of life to each character and his gently rumbling tone was perfect for a quiet, slow-building horror story like this one. If you haven't checked out the audiobook, I highly recommend it. 

 Morbid curiosity got the best of me with this one, despite the fact that, for years, my only trigger has been stuff related to small children and babies. I started feeling over the past year like that trigger had passed, but this story started getting to me and I got the feeling I might regret it if I continued right now. That said, the writing itself was great and I'm VERY interested in reading something else by this author soon!