I'm not remembering this one well- read it when I was younger. I do remember it is slow for like the first 50 pages then it gets awesome!

There was a lot of promise in this but it slumped towards the end. I'll be checking Straub's other books, for certain.

A rich and compelling ghost story. Straub really knows how to peel that story onion.

I picked this up as I was in the mood for a good ghost story. The structure was a tad unnerving until I got about 100 pages (on an iPad) in. Kept me going as a mystery unravelled. Characters and setting were generally intriguing. But then... Well, honestly, I just don't consider superhuman monsters ghosts. So, I read to the end, but the book never provided the scares the quotes promised or the ghosts noted in the title.

Still holds up today, as well as it did so long ago. Excellent story, scary & creepy, and holds you in a tight grip, all the way through.

Wavering between a four and five, but either way a very enjoyable Halloween read. I can see why Stephen King likes it so much, it’s one of his books without the sexual perversion. Straub does an excellent job developing the small town unaware of what’s about to hit it, and the characters that start off as caricatures quickly develop into much more. The only thing I still don’t understand is ‘why’. Why did it all start? Anyway, lots of layers to peel back and doors to open. Its reputation is deserved.

The prose is great, and brings the world of this haunting to life brilliantly. Unfortunately, the book doesn't manage to maintain the unease it builds in the earlier portions of the story, revealing too much and thus turning the story from true horror to something merely dressed like it. Well worth the read all the same, just not one that will keep you up at night.

Peter Straub was inspired to write this book after reading Stephen King's Salem's Lot, and I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that King's inspiration for IT came from Ghost Story.

In my opinion, though, IT is vastly superior to Ghost Story for several orders of reasons:

1) the overall story is simply better: tighter, sharper, more engrossing, better plotted;

2) the characters are more lifelike and likeable: we have firsthand knowledge of all of them, even if one dies before the adult storyline begins in earnest, and so we have time to get attached to them, to worry, to grieve when necessary; the main characters of Ghost Story are either already dead before the story begins or die very abrupt and sometimes pointless deaths, in one case without having contributed anything of substance to the narrative;

3) the motivation that drives the Evil Force and the rules that govern it are much better laid out in IT, while in Ghost Story the whole thing seems at times rather arbitrary (why did she wait 50 years to come back for the Chowder Society as a whole but took a detour to harass one of the members' nephews? how it is that if she gets killed in human form she can shift to an animal body but if she gets killed in an animal body that's it? why does the former Eva Galli suddenly start to always go by the initials A.M.? was Viola Frederickson part of the whole thing?);

3-b) the Evil Force in IT is an universal concept, and relatable to all readers; the Evil Force in Ghost Story is, well, active female sexuality. The Chowder guys kill Eva, with which they are infatuated, because she makes sudden and unexpected advances on them. They do not act out of concern for their friend's well-being (her fiancé just died, it would be easy to assume she's acting out of shock): they are sincerely worried about the possibility of being corrupted by her because she dances wildly and takes off her shirt and tries to kiss them. While depressingly common, I don't think this is quite as universal a fear as the author seems to believe;

3-c) speaking of which, they are lucky that Eva turns out to have been a demon or whatever, because what Lewis did and they all helped cover up is DEFINITELY manslaughter, and it's a bit surprising to see the narrative not explore the fact that the characters seem to believe that the action that was taken (violently tackling someone and killing them in the process) was fundamentally justified as a reaction to, again, easily rebuffable sexual advances from a supposed friend that was believed to be in a state of shock;

4) none of the female characters act like people: they exist only in relation to men, with the possible exception of the two women who have a fight over canned pumpkin (but maybe it was their husbands who had a craving for it!). Their descriptions obsess over their physical appearance and sex appeal even in their own interior monologue. Ricky's wife is perfectly satisfied with her husband postponing the explanation about the events that almost resulted in their deaths until they go on holiday several months later. Their daughter's defining trait in her father's mind seems to be "overweight".

All in all a pretty disappointing read, mostly because I went in expecting a truly great novel. That said, it was engaging enough that I did read all 700-odd pages of it over three days, so three stars for entertainment value.

Huge disappointment. I was looking forward to reading this, especially because it came with such a glowing review from Stephen King. However, the more I read, the less I liked. I thought the characters were too archetypal (especially Stella and Sears), the plot meandered, and the fear - which was supposed to build up - never really took hold. At times I even found some of the characters intensely annoying. I was only interested in the story of Alma Mobley, but in the end, I even found that story pointless. :(