The Shining by Stephen King

 
Wow. Just...wow.
I absolutely loved this book. I'd read a couple of Stephen King books before (Carrie and The Green Mile) but this is definitely the best one I've read thus far. 
This book starts you off slow, giving you lots of background, tons of foreshadowing, amazing word pictures. It's amazing when a book can give you that tight knot in your stomach, get you to the point that you're so creeped out you need to set down the book for awhile before you can continue. 

So, for any of you who have read it, the best part was the ending, Danny's revelation of his father not actually being in his body anymore but being completely possessed by the hotel, and the hotel explosion. So I know this isn't completely relevant to "bookwins", but I watched the movie right after finishing the book because I wanted to see what the fuss was about and see the Jack Nicholson version of Jack Torrance.

Somewhat disappointed.

Don't get me wrong, Jack Nicholson did a good job. But I was so disappointed to see that there was no attack from the hedge animals, that Dick Hallorann died, that he was trying to kill his family with an ax instead of a roque mallet, which completely took away the scariness of imagining the sound of the mallet pounding on the walls as he stalked around the hotel searching for Wendy and Danny, and other things that were completely left out. The dynamic of why Jack was fired from his job was left out, the Overlook's history was left out or maybe nonexistent in the movie, they made a short explanation of "oh, the Overlook was built over Indian burial grounds." It just seemed skimmed over and convoluted. Plus the fact that there was a part in the movie that makes no sense unless you have the background from the novel. And Wendy Torrance in the movie was so hard to sympathize with, she just annoyed the hell out of me. She was always whimper-crying and being more of a baby than the strong woman protecting her child that she was made out to be in the book. As a movie by itself, I think it was pretty good...Stanley Kubrick does good cinematography and it is creepy...but the book is a hell of a lot creepier. I think it's just another example of how the book is better than the movie. 
I recommend this book even if you don't typically like horror. It's just so well-written and the story is developed excellently. Plus it says a lot about human nature and other issues in the book that you have a hard time drawing out until you finish it, and some that I think I won't even be able to draw out until I read it again. This book just gives me chills. 

P.S. I'm really glad I finally found bookwins! I've been a member of bookfails  for awhile, and when I finished the Shining, I needed a place to rant about the awesomeness to people who will appreciate it :)