Cujo

Stephen King

Jan 2016 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Lorna Raver

About this audiobook

The #1 New York Times bestseller, Cujo “hits the jugular” (The New York Times) with the story of a friendly Saint Bernard that is bitten by a bat. Get ready to meet the most hideous menace ever to terrorize the town of Castle Rock, Maine.

Outside a peaceful town in central Maine, a monster is waiting. Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day, Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats and emerges as something new altogether.

Meanwhile, Vic and Donna Trenton, and their young son Tad, move to Maine. They are seeking peace and quiet, but life in this small town is not what it seems. As Tad tries to fend off the terror that comes to him at night from his bedroom closet, and as Vic and Donna face their own nightmare of a marriage on the rocks, there is no way they can know that a monster, infinitely sinister, waits in the daylight.

What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written. “A genuine page-turner that grabs you and holds you and won’t let go” (Chattanooga Times), Cujo will forever change how you view man’s best friend.

Ratings and reviews

The ladies voice is wrong for this book. The main characters in this book are in their early 30's and a 4 year old. The person reading sounds like she's in her 90's smoking non filter lucky strikes. I'm sure she's a lovely lady but that voice makes this almost unlistenable.

I Love reading or listening to Stephen King books. I have all his books in print and listen to audio while driving. Fan for life!!

Book is excellent. Narrator is one of the worst I have ever heard. I listen to 4-8 audiobooks a month. I've heard all kinds of narrating. I much prefer underemphasized readers compared to over-emotionalized reading. this narrator manages to give the worst of both worlds. her words come out mechanically and jerkily, like she is reading each word as a separate sentence. yet she over emphasizes all of her words as if she is trying to tell a spooky ghost story to 3-year-olds with short attention spans. she is trying way too hard, and it is painful to listen to. she reads like she is REALLY trying hard to sell you Avon, or convince you to buy into her pyramid scheme. her voice is too raspy like she smokes 2 packs a day, or gargles with Everclear instead of mouthwash. it's a good book, but this audiobook is torture, painful to hear. if she was acting in a play, she would be chewing on the scenery. King must have been wasted when he chose Ms. Raver to narrate.

About the author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.