By the midpoint of the story, you're about 250 pages into the book. The concept is appealing so far, I explained it a bit more in my last post. Basically, continuing from my last post, little Danny has this thing that a man called 'The Shining', which is basically like a psychic ability. Those who have the Shining can see things that have happened or that are to happen. Even though this hasn't been very obvious, I also think it gives you the ability to see ghosts. Danny has this 'imaginary friend' named Tony, who shows him these visions and it seems that while Tony could be a figment of his imagination, it seems more logical for him to be a ghost of some sorts. At the hotel, Danny is tormented with images of blood and brains being splattered on the walls, corpses, and some sort of fire-extinguisher becoming a snake (what) while his father becomes tormented with his desire for alcoholic drinks, passive aggressive anger, and strange hallucinations. And then there's poor Wendy who has to put up with all this crazy stuff that she doesn't even understand, poor girl.
Honestly, I find that the book would be a lot more emotionally investing if there was a bit more dialogue. A majority of the book is just describing what's happening, and giving a bit of insight of the past. Most of the character's apparent dialogue consists off long and droning monologues that you can skip, and the story can be completely the same, or quick bickers in between the characters in which someone says something notably harsh. Though characters do occasionally have a dialogue that teaches us a bit about the character's personality, it is not enough for me to feel emotionally invested into the characters. Though I get some sob stories about their past, how Wendy's sister died and how her mother was a total jerk, how Jack follows his father's path of being an abusive alcoholic, though he hasn't quite beaten his wife in front of his children yet, and then there's Danny who's just suffering from the first-world problems of being a psychic little boy in a horror story. I don't know why, but when I read these, I can't find myself caring. I understand it was cruel, and it was horrible, but I don't actually FEEL anything. That's the problem with most horror stories, I think. Though I love the horror genre, it is extremely difficult to feel pleased or truly scared. If I want to be truly scared in a book, I need to have characters I genuinely care about and frankly, I could care less about Danny, Jack, and Wendy. Honestly, they feel like characters, not people. That's the problem. I can tell that they're just pawns to be placed in a horror story, and while they have well developed yet tragic pasts, what is there to offer me that I should care about them? How about they're witty, cheeky personalities? Their care for anything? The bad about them mostly overpowers the good in them. I suppose that's what is most disappointing about this book so far. These are characters not people. (Also the book has failed to scare me to any extent, though only one book has ever done that so far)
A lot of the most thought provoking things in the book are tied into scenes with Jack suffering some sort of mental breakdown or whatever. Mostly tied to mental states and insanity such as on page 109, when the author states “When you unwittingly stuck your hand into the wasps’ nest, you hadn’t made a covenant with the devil to give up your civilized self with its trapping of love and respect and honor. It just happened to you. Passively, with no say, you ceased to be a creature of the mind and became a creature of the nerve endings; from college-educated man to wailing ape in five easy seconds” (King 109) it seems what he’s saying is that these states where you just break down and do things you regret are not things that you accept. They’re something that took you by surprise and can change you into something that you’re not. I think this part kind of foreshadows that one of the characters in the story are going to go insane. Based off of the behaviors of the characters, it seems that the one that is going to break is going to be Jack.
Though I’m not super impressed yet with the book, I still have high expectations. I hope that it turns around and proves me wrong, or I will be disappointed.
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