While there certainly are moments that evoke strong feelings of disgust (the depiction of the smells!) and maybe even fright, here and there, it is mainly the tragedy surrounding the family's life in their new home that I found intriguing. Because King is so successful in conveying feelings of sadness that it becomes truly understandable why the doctor gets ever more entangled with the evil forces that he does not understand and that lead to his descent into madness and darkness towards the end of the book. Amazing how much can be accomplished by, what is on the surface, such a simple style of writing. Great book.