Warning:  Do not read this review if you sensitive to the subject of death or have recently lost a loved one.  The entire book's theme is related to these sensitive subjects as well as processing grief in the most negative way.  I recommend skipping out on the book review completely if death is a sensitive subject to you and read something else decidedly more positive.  I recommend for a warm, comforting feeling the Twilight series books (as much as I do not like the series) or Maximum Ride.  The last thing I want to do as a writer is to completely rip off the bandage on this difficult subject matter. 

  What is it that scares you the most?  Some people would respond with the common answer of arachnophobia, the fear of spiders.  Their unusual squishy form as well as the reputation some spiders have of being poisonous makes this fear quite justifiable for those who have it.  Another common fear is glossophobia, speech anxiety or acrophobia, a fear of heights.  Alongside arachnophobia, glossophobia and acrophobia reign supreme as some of the most common phobias people have all over the world.  Other lesser known phobias that have gained traction over the years are coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, trypophobia, the fear of small hole shaped clusters, ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, and galeophobia, the fear of sharks.  If you have any of these fears, that is okay.  As humans all of us are fundamentally flawed.  Even I am prone to being scared.  If your answer is different, that is fine too.  The subject matter is about fear itself and how you would respond to the question above.  Why ask that potentially personal question to you guys?  The reason is simply because of the theme of thanatophobia throughout this book review, the fear being of death itself.  Steven King's well known novel Pet Sematary explores this fear which dwells inside almost all human beings, and how one deals with the aftermath of this fear being realized through grief.

  The story of Pet Sematary is about the Creed family, an average family of five who move from Chicago to the town of Ludlow after the father Louis Creed gets a job as a doctor for the nearby college.  Alongside Louis is his loyal wife Rachal, his two year old son Gage, his six year old daughter Ellie, and his loyal cat Winston Churchill.  Things seem normal at first for the Creed family until friendly neighbor and father figure to Louis Jud Crandall shows them the local Pet Sematary out of the family's curiosity.  This Pet Sematary for the last hundred years has been a common burial site of Ludlow's local pets, who have become victimized to the crazy truck filled road throughout town.  Deeper into the site is an abandoned Native American burial ground, which can bring anything buried in it back to life.  Unfortunately, the family cat only months later becomes another victim of this dangerous road and not wanting his daughter Ellie, who was  extremely close to the cat, to grieve, Louis buries the cat at this supernatural site.  The next day, Church (the nickname for the cat) returns from the dead and returns home.  However, he is far from the same cat Louis buried in that graveyard.  Church constantly reeks of the sour dirt he was buried in, takes pleasure in killing small animals for sport, and brings unknown fear to anyone who comes close to him.  The cat, although alive, has come back a complete shell of himself or better yet a demon.

  The story only gets darker when Gage, Louis's two year old son, is tragically killed by that same busy road.  Not being able to comprehend his son's death, Louis decides to cheat nature by bringing his son to the same burial grounds previously used for Church.  The entire act slowly puts Louis slowly on the path into insanity from grief and the blood that will never leave his hands at the irreversible acts he has done.  All of the deeds slowly destroy everything Louis loves, until the supernatural phenomenon at the Pet Sematary rid Louis of his individuality as well as sanity.  He is now nothing but a shell for the evil forces at hand to use in order to create endless chaos.

  There is no doubt the story described in Pet Sematary is a warning about messing with nature, in this case death.  Although we might really want to bring a loved one back to life, seeking to do so would be a feat that not only destroys your sanity, but the memory of that loved one as well.  Anyone who has lost a family member or pet has to learn this harsh lesson, as ugly as it may be.  This was a feeling I myself could relate to at the loss of my beloved cat Abigail, who at eighteen died of natural causes.  That cat had been around me since I was born, debuting in every single baby video in the house and sleeping next to me whenever I got sick.  Abigail may have even saved my life once or twice.  She was a special type of cat you only see once or maybe twice in a lifetime.  When she passed on, I was consumed with grief that lasted for months.  My biggest wish was to bring this special cat back into the world, or negate the events that led to her demise.  However over time, I realized trying anything to bring Abigail back would only taint the great memories I had of her.  Though it was painful, I had to move on with my life, even if Abigail could no longer be a part of it.  Metaphorically, Abigail's memory guides me to be a good person every single day, even giving me the decision to get a tattoo of her put on my left shoulder when I turned eighteen.  If given the circumstances Louis Creed was, I would not go forward with bringing Abigail back because the creature that would arrive at my doorstep would not be the same sweetheart I grew up with.

  Louis Creed as a character is a reminder on the negativities grief can put upon us.  It can cause us to lose a complete sense of what is right or wrong, such as when he decides to revive his son from the same graveyard that brought back a demonic version of Church.  Nothing except that individual fills the mind of the person in grief, imagining scenarios in which the death could have been avoided.  Louis is plagued by this aspect of grief, imagining a version of Gage that survives the accident and grows up to be an Olympic athlete.  You can even push away those you need the most in your darkest hour, a trait Louis demonstrates by distancing his wife Rachel when she needs him as equally as he needs her.  Insanity in the worst of cases can occur from the massive loss, which Louis Creed depicts to the audience once the damage of his actions are too much to bear.  There is no better depiction of grief than that demonstrated by Louis Creed.

  There are other reactions of grief explored besides Louis's.  His wife Rachel is haunted by the death of her fourteen year old sister Zelda, who died of spinal meningitis when she was only eight.  She tries to lock away the memory of that incident, blaming herself for something that no one could have avoided.  Her parents Irwin and Dory Goldman grieve Zelda in a different way by overprotecting Rachel as retribution for not being able to help their eldest daughter.  Jud Crandall mourns his wife Norma arguably in the most mature sense possible; remembering the good person she was and living on to preserve her memory.  Finally, there is Ellie, who at the death of her brother awaits his miraculous revival, deep down knowing that reality will never be.  To preserve Gage's memory, she constantly carries a picture around of him so as not to fall into despair.  All the characters mentioned treat death differently, but all go through grief.

  That is the harsh truth Pet Sematary is giving its readers in a mature, yet scary way.  Death is unavoidable for all individuals and the way we grieve is going to be different in each case.  We can either hold on to the positive aspects of the person like Jud or fall into insanity like Louis.  Preservation of the individual's memory is the best route.  If resurrection were possible, do not delve in it as that person will never come back exactly the same.  Pet Sematary is a highly recommended book for you guys to read, even if the subject matter itself is hard to swallow.  From the three Steven King books I have read so far, Pet Semetary is a close second to The Shining.  The only reason it is not higher than The Shining is due to its open ending, where no solution can be found to the ongoing conflict and the story just wraps up with Louis now living in his own realm of insanity.  Some people would like this ending, while others would be completely annoyed by it.  It is the incomplete sense of the ending that only prevents Pet Sematary from being Steven Kings best reviewed book.  Even so, there is no doubt this book deserves the reputation it has gained over the years as such a classic story.

Note:  This was by far the hardest book for me ever to read.  The subject matter really hit me deeply, and only a writer like Steven King could ever make me finish a story with this dark of a premise.  I was deeply disturbed by Louis Creed's actions, especially near the end.  However, that is not the scariest part of Pet Sematary for me personally.  It is the story behind the creation of the book Steven King describes in the preface of the novel.  The entire storyline was inspired by the death of his own cat from a similarly dangerous road and the near death of his son in circumstances similar to Gage.  The whole story was created as a what-if scenario for both instances he experienced for himself.  After writing the book, Steven King was so disturbed by the story's content that he tried to completely bury it away.  However, he needed a manuscript for his agent to potentially publish and Pet Sematary was the only one he had at the time.  Steven King would go on to say Pet Sematary was his darkest novel, above even The Shining, which most vivid readers of his works agree is the scariest.  If that does nor give you even the slightest sense of dread before even starting the book, I really do not know what will.