Cujo by Stephen King (Audiobook Review)

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Title: Cujo
Author: Stephen King
Narrator: Lorna Raver
Copyright: 2010, Blackstone Audio
Duration: 14 hours, 8 minutes
Genres: horror, suspense
Filed in: Audiobook Reviews
Review copy provided by Blackstone Audio.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: A cute family dog turns into a vicious family killer in King's canine classic.
©1982 Stephen King (P)2010 Penguin

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: There are all kinds of horrors in this world, some real, some only perceived. Real or not, the one thing that all horrors seem to have in common is that, like many other things in this world, they gain power through our own belief. Yes, it is our very faith that can turn those bumps in the night into ravenous, slobbering beasts. And once our faith makes them real, it is almost impossible to dispel them and send them back to the dark corners of our imaginations.
Five-year-old Tad Trenton knows all about horrors. Night after night he lies awake waiting for the dark shapes in his bedroom closet to come for him. And when he does finally drift off into troubled sleep, they roam freely in his nightmares. And so on that summer day when Tad and his mother drove the old Pinto out to Joe Camber’s rural home for some repair work, he was probably less surprised than she at the red-eyed, foam-dripping monster that lay there in wait for them.
Cujo had always been a good dog. Although he weighed in at almost 200 pounds, the hulking St. Bernard was as gentle as a lamb, especially with children which he truly seemed to adore. Until the incident with the bat, that is. One little scratch was all it took, and soon the bright sunlight and sounds of summer were no longer pleasant things, they were hurtful. Now Cujo only wants to lash out at the world which suddenly seems full of sharp glass. I think it is safe to say that Cujo was not quite himself the day Donna and Tad Trenton drove into his dooryard.
I have to confess that I’m not completely sure what Stephen King is trying to tell us in Cujo. He draws some clear parallels between the real monster, Cujo, and the imaginary monsters of Tad’s bedroom closet, but what is he getting at? Maybe he’s saying that the real horrors of this world can sometimes be even more terrifying and illogical than the bogeymen conjured up by our over-active imaginations. There is some truth to that at least. Just take a look at your newspaper’s headlines.
There is one particularly creepy scene in Cujo that actually gave me goosebumps. Cujo’s owner is a boy named Brett Camber, and while Cujo is going on his rampage Brett and his mom, Charity, are visiting relatives in Connecticut. Late one night, Charity finds Brett sleep-walking and follows him into the kitchen. Charity watches in stunned silence as Brett goes through the familiar motions of putting out a bowl of food for Cujo. Her horror deepens as she watches a tear roll down his face, and then he says, “Cujo’s not hungry no more. Not no more, not no more.” King always knows instinctively how to really creep us out. Little kids walking and talking in their sleep will do it every time.
Cujo was narrated by Lorna Raver who did an adequate job. Her reading was good although it did not feel completely natural to me. She may have been a bit too dramatic. Raver has appeared on many television shows including Boston Legal, Desperate Housewives, Gilmore Girls, and Cold Case.
This is Stephen King’s classic tale of ae family dog suddenly turned vicious killer. It is a story of how terrors can suddenly leap out at us from the most unexpected places, at the most unexpected times; the sane suddenly turned insane. But it is also a story of survival, of finding that inner reserve of strength when we need it most. In Cujo, Stephen King reminds us that the little horrors of our everyday lives can suddenly seem trivial when we are faced with a moment of truly irrational terror.

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If you like this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get “Cujo” by Stephen King (Unabridged Audiobook) from Blackstone Audio.

This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
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