I haven’t read Stephen King in years and The Shining came highly recommended. It’s been quite difficult to convince me to read a book of a movie I’ve already watched and I’ve watched The Shining countless times. However, I am so glad I read this book.
This is one of the best psychological horrors I’ve ever read. It definitely goes into more detail than the movie, so much so that I actually had more sympathy for Jack. I could also understand Wendy’s pain better and I became quite the fan of Danny. Stephen King captured very well a young child trying to make sense of his surroundings, and being smart enough to realize that adults are not telling him the full story; I feel like we all felt that way as children. Since Danny has the “shining” it makes him even more melancholy and troubled at such a young age and my heart really went out to him at times.
The book actually didn’t scare me much; I think the movie scared me a lot more. I did find it fascinating (and disturbing) to be able to read the thoughts of all three members of the Torrance family, as well as Halloran’s, and also to read the descriptions of the hotel, which were very well done.
Probably one of the reasons I couldn’t give it 5 stars is because I am not fond of literature or movies using the trope of the “magical Negro” or similar stereotypes. As much as I liked Halloran’s character I couldn’t shake the fact that I’ve seen this kind of character in other places, and it’s getting a bit old. I found this on the internet about said trope: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/2…
Curious to know how Danny turned out in the sequel.
Les Reveries de Rowena 
I agree with the “magical negro” complaint. That was one of the things (aside from the disturbing horror stuff) that bothered me about the book, too. I do love Halloran, though.
This book terrified me. I reviewed it on my blog–you’d probably get a good chuckle out of my post.
After reading the book I rewatched the movie (hadn’t seen it in years), and thought it was ridiculous. It didn’t scare me at all. All the characters were completely different, and I didn’t like the changes Kubrick made to the actual story and the landscape. The only redeeming quality was Jack Nicholson. Heh.