The Shining by Stephen King
🪓 The Shining ⭐ 5/5 — Haunted Halls, Haunted Hearts, and Horror Perfection
by Stephen King
👉 Buy The Shining on Amazon (affiliate link)
⚠️ Trigger Warnings
Alcoholism • domestic abuse • child endangerment • murder • psychological horror • isolation • supernatural violence
🚨 Spoiler Warning
This review contains major spoilers — including who dies, who shines, and who’s still haunting that cursed Colorado hotel.
🏨 My Thoughts (and How I Ended Up Sleeping Above Room 217 😱)
This is classic Stephen King. You know what I love about him? His stories are slow burns, yes — but when he gets under your skin, he stays there. I swear, when you finish a Stephen King book, it doesn’t leave you. It camps in your brain. It haunts your dreams. It makes you stare suspiciously at every hallway mirror for a week.
I actually read The Shining as part of a trip to Colorado, where my family stayed at the Stanley Hotel — the real-life inspiration for the Overlook! We even stayed in the Elizabeth Suite, right above the infamous Room 217, and took The Shining tour. 👻 It was the perfect eerie backdrop to reading one of the creepiest novels ever written.
And honestly? The book lives up to every ounce of its reputation.
The movie is iconic, sure — Jack Nicholson swinging that axe is burned into pop culture — but King’s novel is deeper, richer, and much more psychological. I can see why fans are divided on which version reigns supreme.
The way King portrays addiction here is so raw and real. He captures how alcohol quietly dismantles a family — and how rage and guilt can possess a man as effectively as any ghost. It’s both terrifying and heartbreaking.
This is horror perfection. 🩸
🧠 Overview
Published in 1977, The Shining was Stephen King’s third novel and his first major hardcover bestseller. It follows the Torrance family — Jack, Wendy, and their five-year-old son Danny — as they spend the winter caretaking the isolated Overlook Hotel high in the Colorado mountains.
The story blends supernatural terror with psychological realism, exploring addiction, domestic violence, guilt, and the idea that some places — and people — are simply cursed.
It’s divided into five sections:
1️⃣ Prefatory Matters
2️⃣ Closing Day
3️⃣ The Wasps’ Nest
4️⃣ Snowbound
5️⃣ Matters of Life and Death
📚 Detailed Plot Summary (FULL SPOILERS BELOW!)
I. A Family on the Edge
Jack Torrance, once an English teacher and playwright, is trying to rebuild his life. He’s 14 months sober but haunted by his past — especially the time he broke his young son’s arm in a drunken rage after Danny spilled beer on his manuscript. His career ended after he assaulted a student, and his temper feels like “a vicious animal on a frayed leash.”
His friend Al Shockley, who owns part of the Overlook Hotel, offers Jack a winter caretaker job. It seems like a lifeline: peace, quiet, and time to finish his play The Little School.
Wendy Torrance, Jack’s wife, is hopeful but wary. She’s watched Jack spiral before and is terrified of what isolation might do to him. Her greatest fear is having to raise Danny alone.
Danny Torrance, age five, is no ordinary child. He has a psychic ability called “the shine” — the power to read minds, sense emotions, and glimpse the future. His “imaginary friend” Tony (a projection of his older self) shows him frightening visions: a hallway dripping with blood, masked figures at a party, and the cryptic word REDRUM.
At the Overlook, Danny meets Dick Hallorann, the hotel’s cook, who also “shines.” Hallorann warns him about the hotel’s dark energy — especially Room 217, where a woman once died by suicide. “If you ever see something bad, look away,” he tells Danny.
II. The Overlook’s Dark History
As the Torrances settle in for the winter, the sinister nature of the Overlook begins to reveal itself.
Jack discovers a scrapbook in the basement filled with clippings about the hotel’s gruesome past:
-
Gangland murders
-
Mafia guests
-
Political scandals
-
Affairs gone wrong
-
And a former caretaker, Delbert Grady, who butchered his wife and two daughters with a hatchet before turning the gun on himself.
King describes the hotel as a sponge, soaking up the emotions and violence of its guests over decades — a place where evil itself has taken root.
III. The Wasps’ Nest
Danny begins seeing more apparitions — including the topiary animals on the lawn that seem to move when no one’s watching.
Jack, meanwhile, becomes obsessed with the hotel’s history and starts slipping. He hears voices in the Colorado Lounge, where a ghostly bartender named Lloyd serves him gin on credit. The “Wasp’s Nest” (both literal and symbolic) represents Jack’s fragile sobriety and the festering anger he refuses to face.
Danny’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he finally enters Room 217 — where he encounters the bloated corpse of Mrs. Massey, a woman who killed herself after an affair. Her corpse attacks him, strangling him with “squittering” fingers. When he’s found, his neck is covered in bruises — proof of something Wendy can’t explain.
Jack, furious, accuses Wendy of hurting Danny. The hotel’s grip tightens.
IV. Snowbound
The storm hits. They’re trapped. The phone lines die. The radio goes silent.
Jack’s sanity deteriorates quickly. He begins conversing with Delbert Grady, now a ghostly waiter. Grady tells him he’s “always been the caretaker” and must “correct” his wife and son.
Meanwhile, Danny — terrified and helpless — psychically calls out for help to Hallorann in Florida. Hallorann feels the psychic scream like a hammer blow to his brain and immediately knows Danny’s in danger.
Back at the hotel, Wendy locks Jack in the pantry after he threatens them. But when she returns later, the door is mysteriously open. Grady has freed him.
Jack retrieves a roque mallet and begins his violent rampage. He attacks Wendy, breaking her ribs and knee, while she fights back with a knife. Hallorann arrives — only to be ambushed and nearly killed by Jack.
V. The Boiler, the Boy, and the End
Danny faces his father one last time. But what’s standing before him isn’t Jack — it’s the Overlook itself wearing Jack’s body like a mask.
In that terrifying moment, Danny reminds his father of the one thing the hotel forgot: the boiler needs to be released every day, or it will explode.
That sliver of humanity flickers inside Jack one final time. He tells Danny to run, crying out in despair as the Overlook’s entity panics and rushes to the basement.
It’s too late.
The boiler explodes, ripping through the hotel and destroying it completely — fire, ghosts, hedge animals and all.
Wendy, Danny, and Hallorann escape on a snowmobile, watching as the Overlook burns behind them.
VI. Epilogue: The Shining Lives On
Months later, Wendy and Danny are in Maine. Hallorann, now a cook at the Red Arrow Lodge, looks after them. Wendy is healing, and Danny is learning to control his shine.
Hallorann gives Danny the advice that defines the book’s bittersweet ending:
“You’ll love him forever, Danny. But it’s time to get on.”
It’s a quiet close to a loud, terrifying story — one about love, addiction, and the ghosts we make ourselves.
💬 My Take
The first time I read this, I thought it was about ghosts. Now I realize it’s about people. The ghosts are just metaphors for addiction, anger, and family trauma.
And yet, it’s still legitimately terrifying. King’s slow pacing lets the dread crawl in one page at a time until you’re practically snowed in with the Torrances yourself.
The way King writes Jack’s descent into madness feels too real — the kind of horror that’s both supernatural and painfully human.
It’s brilliant, immersive, and utterly unforgettable.
📖 Final Rating: ⭐ 5 out of 5
This isn’t just a haunted house story — it’s the haunted house story.
A masterclass in atmosphere, character, and dread.
If you’ve only seen the movie, read the book. It’s slower, sadder, scarier, and — dare I say — better.
🛍️ Where to Buy
👉 Buy The Shining on Amazon (affiliate link)
🔦 Similar Reads & Recommendations
If you loved the psychological horror and haunted isolation, try:
-
🌫️ Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (the sequel)
-
🩸 Misery by Stephen King
-
🕯️ The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
-
👁️ Hell House by Richard Matheson
-
💀 Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Comments
Post a Comment