Pet Sematary
Now a major motion picture! Stephen King's #1 New York Times bestseller is a "wild, powerful, disturbing" (The Washington Post Book World) classic about evil that exists far beyond the grave--among King's most iconic and frightening novels. When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow's tranquility, an undercurrent of danger exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creed's beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thing...as is evidenced by the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard where another burial ground lures with seductive promises and ungodly temptations. A blood-chilling truth is hidden there--one more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. As Louis is about to discover for himself sometimes, dead is better...
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Community Reviews
I thought it was going to be scarier. After reading the intro, I understand why Mr. King felt it was his scariest book. An interesting read, a bit wordy. As i raced through the last few sections, it felt as thought it had just gotten started and that was where the story should have picked up, not ended! All in all, checked one off of the “booket” list!
Read October 2022
Great! Fantastic writing and suspense, great story. Find myself remembering certain lines and scenes clearly.
I am a HUGE Stephen King fan, especially of his older novels where many say he was in his prime but I never picked up Pet Semetary until now. When looking for new horror recommendations this novel was on almost every must read horror list so I finally said ok and picked up a copy from the library.
I had previously avoided this novel because as a kid all I knew about it was that a cat died and a toddler gets maimed by a truck then both are buried in a pet semetary and both come back....wrong. As King says in the novel, sometimes dead is better. This idea I found too much for me, because I’m a huge animal lover and as a kid I unfortunately witnessed a toddler being run over by a semi so I felt this book would hit a little too close to home.
I’m glad I avoided it until I was older because now as an adult I was able to really put everything else aside and enjoy the novel. It’s not just about ghouls or defying death, it’s about grief and struggling with loss when the unthinkable happens. It’s classic King and while terrible horrible things happen he somehow finds a way to portray a very human message. That even if it seems impossible, dead is better and we need to find ways to cope and move on.
While I feel this isn’t King’s scariest novel for myself, it is one of his best and instills a sense of dread within the reader. It belongs on all those must read lists.
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