Pet Sematary ~ How It Affected You

[samhain]

I first read Pet Sematary back in 1984 when I was 17 years old and I found it to be quite a good read and enjoyed it very much.

Flash forward to the present where I just finished reading it for the second go-around. The big difference is that this time the book seems to keep gnawing at me to the point where I've had nightmares for the past 5 or so evenings.
Maybe it's because I'm older and my sensibilities have changed. Maybe it's because I have a young nephew who is right around Gage's age. All I know is this: I had a knot in my stomach through most of the novel and tears in my eyes during the scenes that took place at Jud's home between father and son.

This is one tough novel.

[GNTLGNT]

"Tough" is the word for it...brilliant piece, but always leaves me with what feels like a colossal knot in the pit of my stomach...

[J.T. Adams]

Pet Sematary ~ How It Affected You

Simple: I set it to the side, sighed and said, Man that was good.

[King fan from trinidad]

Pet sematary actually gave me ONE nightmare after

Show Spoiler

Gage got run over and the ghost came to his father

. It also was the first novel of his i had read. Now look at me with over 25 books in my collection now .

[hashbaz]

I recently finished the book for the first time. As a kid I remember being frightened of the movie trailer, particularly the shot of Church hissing with glowing eyes. When I saw the movie a few years later on TV, it disturbed me deeply and permanently. Seeing Timmy Baterman stumbling around knocking things over and pushing his dad terrified me. Finally I had to turn it off during the ending sequence with Gage. Whether fairly or not, I trace my fear of dead bodies and fascination with zombies to this experience.

I have a 3-year-old son now, so I was apprehensive about reading the book, but I'm glad I did it. It has such a wonderful sense of dread and fate that is missing from so much of the reanimated dead fiction that is popular these days. I suppose it is apples and oranges to compare Pet Sematary to more traditional zombie stories, but I wish some of the latter would explore the fear and revulsion and dread of encountering a walking corpse in and of itself, apart from the fact that it wants to kill and possibly eat you.

Louis says at one point that the resurrected Church is not really a cat, but an imitation of a cat. This to me is the core of what makes Pet Sematary (and the whole notion of zombies) horrifying. The uncanny moment of realization that the thing you are looking at is a shallow facade that masks a monster is deeply terrifying, especially when applied to people and animals you know and love.

Anyway, that's my story. Reading the book was therapeutic for me in a way, though I still haven't been able to finish the movie. I made it to Timmy Baterman and had to turn it off.

[heismyking]

This to me was a creepy book especially when my daughter was young. My husband joked to me about burying our cat in our pet cemetery in the side yard. I couldn't do it and instead had the cat cremated. I told myself I was just being silly, but when your imagination is on high after reading The King, you would just believe about anything could happen.

[Chuggs]

I have kids, so it hit home in a scary, what if, kind of way. I love the book as a whole, though. It was scary and a great read. It certainly makes you appreciate the spouse and kiddos, though, and makes you keep an extra eye out.

[Christiane17]

My worst nightmare would be to hit a kid on the road, so every time I come to that part in the book or the movie, I'm almost nauseous. It's a great piece of work, but I would say that almost all through the book, I feel kinda bad. Rachel's encounter with her sis terrorizes me, and of course the part in the cemetery where the poor dad picks up his kid in the coffin. It's awful!!!

[Doc Wilson]

I think its his most disturbing book, by a long shot. It was the only one I knew I'd never read again.

[Chuggs]

I remember going into it that it woudl tough because it was always the one that my mom and dad said was the scariest. It was tough, but I loved it and ran right through it, reading it in just a few days. It is a really tough book, though, especially for those who have kids. It's all too easy to imagine something like happening, which is why all parents should keep an extra eye out, ALWAYS.