For many Stephen King fans, there are non-scary books, there are scary books, and then there's Pet Sematary. King's first decade of published novels had already included classics like Carrie, The Shining, and The Dead Zone, but even among those, this book was particularly terrifying.
The novel follows the Creed family as they move to a house in rural Maine so the patriarch, Louis, can take a job as the head of the University of Maine's medical service. Their new house is beside a road frequented by fast, heavy trucks that often claim the lives of local pets. As a result, neighborhood children have established a pet cemetery in the woods, complete with the misspelled sign that makes up the book's title. When his daughter Ellie's cat, Church, is run over and killed, Louis and his neighbor Jud Crandall bury the cat near the cemetery... but Church soon returns to the Creed family home.
Something's off about the seemingly resurrected family cat, though. It's behaving strangely, not quite like a living thing anymore, and even as Jud begins to regret bringing the cat back to life, another tragedy strikes the family. The Creeds' youngest son, Gage, is hit by another speeding truck, and Louis — shaken by grief and his new understanding of the pet cemetery — begins to ponder the unthinkable.
