This was the first Stephen King that I've read since I was a kid and powered through way too many Stephen King books at way too young an age. I somehow never read this one OR saw the movie, so it was really awesome to read it for the first time so fresh. 

There were so many things that I enjoyed about reading this book that had little to do with the horror aspect of it. Reading a book written in the 70s and set in the 70s was like glimpsing a time capsule. Having to take a pause to recognize that the hotel being closed for a decade in the 30s was as close in time as the 80s are now was a trip, and moments like a character calling an airline thirty minutes before a flight took off to purchase a ticket was absolutely wild. I also was very amused to realize that this book actually fits very nicely into one of my favorite high-level categories of books: slow moving character studies. Except it was horror. 

The pacing of this book was so fantastic, and so many of the scary moments were indeed frightening and deeply unsettling! I was viscerally remembering the rules I had set for myself when I was a kid reading these books about never reading them with the lights off and without music playing in the background because I’d get nightmares. While I didn’t get nightmares from reading this book, there definitely were many scary moments that have stuck with me. I also appreciated that somehow, as violent as the book got toward the end, it wasn’t graphically depicted body horror (for me at least), so I didn’t have to skim sections and hope I didn’t miss anything important.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this and am looking forward to watching the movie soon so I can compare the two experiences! A perfect way to kick off spooky season.