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The most helpful favorable review
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594 of 641 people found the following review helpful:
The Fate of the World, Under Glass
A small New England town is suddenly, inexplicably cut off from the rest of the world, trapping a large cast of characters inside (or outside) a huge, clear dome. As the emergency escalates, various heroes (and villains) emerge to play a part in the drama. What is the dome? Why is it there? Will the town survive? This is the premise of Stephen King's big, long, thoroughly...
Published 10 months ago by Tom S.
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352 of 426 people found the following review helpful:
Disappointed -- can't quite put my finger on why
Me: Huge King fan. I have five bookshelves with nothing but King -- not just books BY King but books ABOUT his books. Hardcover firsts, special limited editions, graphic novels, and some books I bought only because King wrote the introduction. I've read him from the beginning and have been repaid with hundreds of hours of enjoyment. Anyone else remember the Castle...
Published 9 months ago by Pam Gearhart
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594 of 641 people found the following review helpful:
The Fate of the World, Under Glass, November 10, 2009
A small New England town is suddenly, inexplicably cut off from the rest of the world, trapping a large cast of characters inside (or outside) a huge, clear dome. As the emergency escalates, various heroes (and villains) emerge to play a part in the drama. What is the dome? Why is it there? Will the town survive? This is the premise of Stephen King's big, long, thoroughly fascinating new novel.
King has rarely written a book as ambitious as this. As I was reading, I was constantly wondering about the motives behind the deceptively simple story. As with the best of horror and science fiction, it isn't just about a monster on the rampage. What clearly interests King--and us, the readers--is the reaction of the "ordinary" people of Chester's Mill, Maine, who are placed in this extraordinary situation. In the struggles of these heroes, villains, lovers, and fools, we can all see ourselves. And that is the mark of a great work of art, isn't it?
I've been reading Stephen King for 35 years now--I read his first 3 novels in college--and I've always been impressed by his work. But UNDER THE DOME is in a small group of King stories that go far beyond merely being entertaining fiction. This novel will inevitably be compared to The Stand because it deals with the horrors of the world around us. Forget ghosts and vampires and space aliens--there's nothing as horrifying as what humans are capable of doing to one another. Stephen King knows that: it's the reason his stories are so effective. In his long, distinguished career, he's rarely been as effective--or as entertaining--as he is here. UNDER THE DOME is a fast-paced modern horror story, and it's also an amazingly perceptive modern novel. Highly recommended.
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308 of 347 people found the following review helpful:
Disturbing but addicting thriller, November 10, 2009
Stephen King, no novice at penning lengthy tomes, turns in another 1,000-plus-page behemoth with Under the Dome, a book he started writing in 1976 but abandoned for more than three decades. More than 30 years later, with one of the most remarkable literary careers in history under his belt, he tackled the project again, this time completing a story that plumbs the depths of human wickedness.
The town of Chester's Mill, Maine, is a pretty typical-seeming smallish New England community. It has a diner, a used car dealership, a couple of churches, a supermarket, a newspaper, and a religious radio station. Most of its 2,000 or so residents are good, honest people who genuinely care for each other and for their town.
The scene changes abruptly when a mysterious and invisible barrier materializes out of nowhere, completely cutting the town off from the rest of the world. Within minutes, the death toll begins to rise. A plane smashes into the barrier followed by a number of cars. As scientists and government and military officials scramble to find a way to break through the barrier, those inside the dome have to quickly adjust to their new reality. And with Stephen King manning the controls, it's just a matter of time before that reality turns sinister.
Within days, Chester's Mill turns into a depressing cauldron of murder, corruption, conspiracy, and increasing fear. The town's police fall under the control of a vicious town selectman with dictatorial ambitions. Resources are seized. Vocal dissenters are jailed--or worse. Soon the air quality inside the dome begins to change. Illnesses increase. Children begin to have seizures and frightening visions. Fear leads to anger, and people start to do things they wouldn't have dreamed of just days earlier. As tension mounts, the stage is set for a final cataclysmic showdown between those who will stop at nothing to enforce their agenda for the town and those who believe the town's increasingly dangerous leaders must be stopped at any cost.
On some levels, Under the Dome is almost allegorical. The town's blossoming dictatorship is reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, with a charismatic leader ruling by force, police who operate outside the law, and "police solidarity" armbands for citizens. The worsening environment inside the dome could be a picture of climate change. The fact that the villains are all right-wing fundamentalist Christians (extremely hypocritical Christians at that) is probably a statement of some sort, and there are a few references to Falujah that some might see as antimilitary. In any case, whether or not the author intended to send a message through the story, the book absolutely illustrates the tendency of power to corrupt and the inherent wickedness of the human heart.
Under the Dome is not an easy book to read, and not only because of its size. Readers familiar with King's work will be unsurprised to find foul language and sexual content, some of it disturbing (most notably a gang rape scene and hints of necrophilia). There's plenty of violence, quite a bit of drug use, and lots of examples (very nearly too many, in fact) of people treating each other in all kinds of horrible ways. Though the dome is the reason the townspeople are in their predicament, the real conflict in the book is not people vs. the dome but people vs. each other. This book could just as easily have been titled The Worst-Case Scenario because on page after page, just when it seems the forces of good might be about to catch a break, King pulls the rug out from under them yet again. There's very little in the way of a redemptive message.
Yet all this is offset by King's trademark brilliance in character development and plot pacing, and much of the prose is beautifully crafted. King utilizes an antiquated but effective technique in his narration, slipping into present tense and addressing the reader directly at times to draw attention to a particular item of interest in a scene or to explicitly foreshadow some coming tragedy. Careful readers will find a few references to other Stephen King books peppered throughout.
When he wants to, Stephen King is capable of writing stunningly beautiful stories championing the human spirit in the face of extreme adversity (Duma Key is an example). Under the Dome is not such a book. This is a story about human ugliness, and it's all the more uncomfortable because it rings true. Even so, the brilliance of King's writing is evident on every one of the 1,074 pages. Fair warning: don't start this book unless you have some time on your hands. Uncomfortable though the book may be, it's compelling and suspenseful, and once you start reading, it quickly becomes very difficult to put down.
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91 of 101 people found the following review helpful:
And THAT is Stephen King's genuis, December 7, 2009
From the moment I heard the premise of Under the Dome, I couldn't wait to read it. Here it is in a nutshell: On a perfectly ordinary fall day, an invisible, impregnable barrier surrounds the small town of Chester's Mill, Maine. Nightmare ensues. And I do mean nightmare. Uncle Stevie isn't playing around. This isn't one of his tall tales filled with imaginary monsters and buckets of gore. The monsters here are human, and they are terrifying.
Okay, as an editor, when I see a 1,000+ page novel, my first thought is, "Does it really need to be this long?" Maybe not. I'm sure a few pages could have been trimmed. But I will tell you this... The deeper I got into this novel, the quicker I turned pages--right up until the end, when I was in a veritable page-turning frenzy. It reminded me, right from the start, of the fine work he did in the 70's, when as a child I devoured each new novel upon publication. King hasn't lost his touch with character, and he remains a consummate storyteller.
Under the Dome is epic. The time span is short, but the novel deals with the lives of more than 2,000 people trapped in a combustible hothouse. These are truly terrifying and incomprehensible circumstances. Things in Chester's Mill are bad, and hour by hour the situation got so much worse I didn't want to believe it. But I did. I believed it all. And THAT is Stephen King's genius.
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352 of 426 people found the following review helpful:
Disappointed -- can't quite put my finger on why, November 19, 2009
Me: Huge King fan. I have five bookshelves with nothing but King -- not just books BY King but books ABOUT his books. Hardcover firsts, special limited editions, graphic novels, and some books I bought only because King wrote the introduction. I've read him from the beginning and have been repaid with hundreds of hours of enjoyment. Anyone else remember the Castle Rock newsletter put out by his secretary?
I was enthralled with the first couple hundred pages of Under the Dome. Clear, concise language, vivid images, a well-paced story, and some characters who looked like they were going to be interesting. When the characters failed to develop and it became apparent that most of them were introduced just so we could watch them die in various ways, my interest flagged. Pretty soon I was reading just to get it all over with.
Now it's over. With the best books, you have the sense that the characters lived before you met them and that they will live on when you close the book. Stu Redman is still with me. So is Annie Wilkes. Jack Torrance. But the people of Chester's Mill never came alive -- they're just characters in a novel, thinly drawn pawns that King played with for awhile, moving them here and there without much thought or care.
Specific complaints -- unrealistic expository dialogue, an almost-cartoonish villain, too much foreshadowing that someone was going to die (sometimes King spoils his own books), and a few unbelievable and contrived spots where if you know anything at all about how things really work, you're taken right out of the story.
Maybe if I hadn't been looking forward to this book for so long, it wouldn't have been so disappointing. I hyped it up in my own mind. I'll never do that again.
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20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Quick Review of Stephen King's "Under the Dome", December 5, 2009
Roger Ebert has often written (and I am paraphrasing) that good movies are neither too short nor too long, but rather the length that they need to be to tell the story. The same is true for books. Stephen King writes books and stories that run the gamut of lengths....but he does have a propensity for long novels....many 600+ pages. Arguably, the two books that are most popular among King fans are his two longest: "The Stand" and "It". Both topped 1000 pages. Now King's latest effort, "Under the Dome", also comes in at over 1000 pages.....but for such a long book it is incredibly readable. I found myself consistently turning off the TV or stopping other activities to pick it up.....I finished in under 2 weeks. "Under the Dome" is a story about a small town in Maine that is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by a force field. The entire story takes place in this town....any more information would spoil the plot. "Under the Dome" contains many of the things King does best: a high-concept story, a large cast of well-drawn characters, pop-culture references, and an exciting plot. Typically, King has a sensational set-up, but has trouble with how to resolve the story (if you look up "deus ex machina", you'll probably see King's picture).....as was the case in both "The Stand" and "It". Generally speaking, "Under the Dome" succeeds better in this regard. I wasn't completely satisfied with the "secret" of the Dome, but given all the great things about the book, I can't really complain. As a word of warning, while the book is not "horror" per say, some elements are quite gruesome and there are some very graphic descriptions of violence. Read this book!!!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Another page-turner from Stephen King, January 15, 2010
I've always said that Stephen King may not be the best writer but he is certainly an exceptional storyteller.
"Under the Dome" is probably the finest novel I've read from him in years. It reads exceptionally quick for such a massive novel and while there are a few slow spots they are few and far between. I also think it's some of the finest writing he's ever done. The allegory works perfectly and the characters are very well-crafted, although he does still sink into the typical King cheesiness that often derails even his finest works.
All in all, I highly recommend it but you might want to stay clear if you value your sleep. I stayed up far too late on many a night because I just couldn't put this one down.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
A good read, but very flawed & not up to SK's amazing talent., November 16, 2009
Under the Dome is a good solid read, gripping, painful at times, but its not terribly scary nor is the 'sci fi' element anything to wonder at or be awestruck over. At its heart. UTD is simply a book about a large group of characters "trapped" in an impossible situation - and how they react to the pressure therein. Basically, a psych exam. The books reads very much like the TV show "Lost" or the new "FlashForward" or even "24." We get detailed breakdown of every single day for multiple character POV's. Lots of flashbacks, etc.. its like SK wrote this explicitly to be syndicated into hourly tv episodes. We get these major cliffhangers and plot developments about every 100 pages. I was dismayed that so little happens after the Dome falls in place - until the very end of the book. Its almost like this started out as a 300 page book, and then SK decided to stick 700 pages of "stuff" between the mystifying beginning and the stunning ending.
(below be spoilers....)
(seriously...)
I didn't have a problem with the "deus ex machina" of the "Dome" & the juvenile aliens essentially using an intergalactic xbox360 to experiment with humans. I do wish SK had spent more time on these aliens, their motivations, something about their culture, etc.. but SK has never been strong on sci fi elements (re: tommy knockers). I accepted the Dome's existence and the reason for it being there - I thought it was a little "weak" that the "parental" aliens would leave this amazingly, powerful "toy" sitting around for their kids to play with and use to (a) make first contact with earth and (b) trap and destroy an entire town. Shrugs. I certainly don't leave the matches out for my kids to find and I am just a lowly earthling. Score one for the cavemen.
The part of the book that had me sighing and "rolling my eyes" was the very artificial set up of the power base of Chester Mills. So let me get this straight - the formula for creating this nightmare scenario was:
1 thoroughly corrupt & megalomaniac #2 town councilman (Big Jim)
1 puppet #1 town councilman whose strings are utterly pulled by Big Jim
1 drugged up and useless #3 town councilman who is controlled by the Big Jim
1 very competent police chief who dies within a few chapters, leaving a new puppet police chief whose strings are pulled by Big Jim
1 or more brutish thugs who enlist to serve under Big Jim utterly without questioning his orders
1 of the largest Meth labs (run by Big Jim) in North America hidden (in plain sight) & loaded with thousands of gallons of propane & toxic chemicals, waiting to be used as a horribly destructive bomb
1 "Dome" that surrounds the town & prevents any and all physical contact with the rest of the world. Wait, what?!
Did this strike anyone else as just being terribly contrived? I mean... first there is the billion to one odds of the aliens even dropping a Dome on the Earth, then add to this the odds they pick a town so utterly ripe and ready for ruination. I guess they just got lucky. Of all the places they could have picked, why here? Why this place I kept asking and I actually thought there might be a reason - maybe an alien on the inside, etc.. but nope - just blind luck. I thought maybe even the aliens had stirred the pot, heck maybe Big Jim WAS an alien. But alas, no, just the most messed up town in America.
This set up struck me as so artificial that we really didn't need to see it "happen" - why not just start the book with Big Jim already running the town with an iron hand. At no point did I ever think he was going to be deposed, etc.. and of course he wasn't. And, for all the citizens professed love of Chester Mills - what a horrible, ugly town to ferment such a situation. These people were blind idiots to let them happen. Dome or no dome. In fact, in light of the horrific event near the end, you could say this town was doomed regardless of the Dome ever dropping. A town filled with bigots and thugs and rapists and vile people. I scoff at the notion that it was the pressure of the "Dome" that drove them over the edge. Sure maybe in 1-2 months, but 6 days? Poppycock.
And I guess, my last point of contention is that so much of the book deals with the "good guys" attempt to either evade capture by Big Jim's forces or to stay ahead of Big Jim when ultimately, due to the explosion at the end, none of that was relevant. Considering 24 people of 1000 survived, who cares about the handful of murders that happen at the start of the book. We agonize over the death of Brenda and the teen girls, but in the end - so many people died that all that running around was simply pedantic. They might well as just got to the high ground on day 1 of the Dome day and just sat there for 6 days. The end was pre-ordained at the start, Big Jim was already set to "blow up" or burn down the meth lab anyways. Everything else from the beginning to the end was just soap opera. All the melodrama and nail biting over busting Dale out of the jail was just "marking" time until the big boom - thats when the book really started. Everything "happens" in the last 100 pages. And don't get me started on Dale's inspiration to ask the General for a bunch of industrial size fans to be carted in and ready to use in case, oh i dunno, there be a major explosion that sucks all the air out of the dome - again - lazy writing I say here.
Sorry to grouse, I guess I just expected a lot more from this book. I hear it being compared to The Stand - no chance. The scope of this book was 1000+ pages in one single town over the course of 6 days. The Stand ranged over nearly every major american city and covers 5-10 years in scope.
Frankly, what would interest me more is what happens after the Dome falls and the Earth is now assured that there is life "out there" and that it is powerful and supreme and considers us little more than "ants" to be experimented with. What social and religious and political changes that would bring.
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54 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
Stephen King Takes us Under the Dome, November 20, 2009
Warning: There are some spoilers in this review. If you continue to read, you may feel some important plot twists are given away. That having been said . . .
I just finished the new novel, Under the Dome, by Stephen King, and I enjoyed it, overall. Even though it ended not with a bang, but a whimper, and was ultimately disappointing, just the process of reading (or, as in this case, listening to) a King novel can be most enjoyable.
I say that ahead of time, because it's going to sound like I'm being very critical of Stephen King here, and I am, but I'd still say that, if you like Stephen King, the book is definitely worth the read. It's a long novel full of Stephen King's rich prose, and that in itself is worth the price of admission.
There were several problems for me, however. The primary problem was the nature of the dome itself, and the final resolution of the problem. It made absolutely no sense, not even in the context of the story, and was ultimately unsatisfying. Unlike the Superflu of The Stand, it made no sense. It might have been better if he had handled it the way he had with From a Buick 8--clearly, it was an alien device, had something to do with playing with humans, but really no explanation.
A transplanted defense shield from an alternate reality or the future would have made more sense, and some sort of determination made about when the shield would expire working against the ambitions of the bad guys would have made for a more engaging story. And the resolution to the problem wouldn't have been any worse. As it is, the actual resolution--spoiler alert!--that the resident "Republican to the Core" newspaper editor begs some alien intelligence to let them go, and then it does, is one of those "Huh?" moments that could disappoint the Constant Reader who slogs all the way to the end.
The other thing that is ultimately unsatisfying is the end of the Machiavellian, seemlingy unstoppable bad guy. Big Jim Rennie, after persisting with Jason Voorhees-like tenacity, bumbles himself to death and dies of a heart attack. King might as well have written, "Then the bad guy falls down and dies. The end."
After all the build up, the pages and pages of Big Jim's hypocritical justifications and tirades and excuses and murderous escapades, not to mention his general, malevolent indulgence and nurturing of man's inhumanity to man, he just dies. Oops.
Which brings me to the other thing. King has given us all these characters before, only in better, less-tedious forms. And the left-leaning politics are more overblown, and work more actively against the story, than in most of his previous works.
All the bad guys, and the just-badly-stupid guys who help to enable to bad guys, are Christians. The drug lords ruining the main countryside with crystal meth? The Born Again Christian bad guy, Big Jim Rennie, and the pastor Lester Coggins. The good preacher from the good, reasonable church? She doesn't believe in God! The one good Republican, editor of the local paper, The Democrat? She shows no signs of actually being conservative to, you know, make her more likable, and to what degree she might have some secret conservative leanings, she implies that recent circumstances have helped her "learn and grow", like John McCain or Olympia Snow or Arlen Spector. Or maybe Colin Powell.
There are lots of military guys in the novel, and they are generally treated respectfully, although the few that express any sort of political opinion show that they, too, reflect King's left-leaning political views. And Lieutenant Dale Barbara, the ostensible hero of the piece, is haunted by his memories of his troops randomly beating and shooting innocent Iraqi's in Falujah, with an implication that that was pretty much business as usual with the American military in Iraq . . . so, I suppose, what the King giveth, the King taketh away.
One could be forgiven for thinking, after reading Under the Dome, that the lesson to be drawn is that conservative politics and Christian fundamentalism are married at the hip, and that the two naturally lead to drug dealing, drug addiction, gang rape, police brutality, violent murder, insanity, and eventually the death of two thousand people in a horrific firestorm. None of the bad guys in this book have any political opinions that lean leftwards. None of them are angry about the environment or justify a murder they commit because of their opposition to the war in Iraq. It might be interesting if King--a very good writer when he challenges himself--tried to write a Michael Crichton style novel, like State of Fear, which--to be fair--showed about the same nuance and subtlety in it's characterizations of environmentalists that King does in Under the Dome regarding conservative Christians.
The other thing that stuck in my craw--other than all the Christians being evil drug-addicts and murderers, and the numerous plot threads that never went anywhere--is his consistently low opinion of humanity. Jim Rennie was able to easily manipulate the town into a violent, bloody riot at the grocery store. Okay. I can go with that. History is full of mobs behaving badly. But almost every person, except for our few heroes, follow the worst possible motives. Almost no one seems to really come to their senses later on. All the new recruits for the police force are all automatically bad actors, and like to beat folks up and rape the women. And almost all do so without any apparent concern for the idea that (a) the victimized might seek revenge or (b) the dome, only a few days old, may not be a permanent fixture of life.
And, after the dome comes down, it takes four days for civilization to essentially disintegrate, and a week before almost everyone is burned alive. I realize fiction often operates on a compressed time scale, but, really?
The other thing that bugs me that, as an ex-military guy, Dale Barbara should have been a little more Jason Bourne and a little less Ghandi, more of the time. If you're going to completely blow believability, the hero should, in places, kick some serious butt.
And, of course, as is typical with King, most of the people you root for end up dead. Not a bad strategy, and it worked well in The Stand--who wanted to see Nick Andros bite it, or any of the good guys? But it just worked. And, I do confess, the largely apolitical evil of the bad guys in The Stand made for a more inclusive, more expansive saga than the knee-bent, Jesus-praising bad guys with the word "Republican" tattooed on their fat, sweating, pro-capitalist, tax-cutting, budget-minded foreheads that populate Under the Dome.
I could go on about how tediously repetitive the Crazy Christian is in King's work, but I won't. They've popped up in King's work since the beginning. But I only remember one of them in Cell. I don't think there was even one in Duma Key. There was a fairly dominant one in The Mist, some various crazy religious people in Storm of the Century, and numerous other novels and short stories. But I don't remember them being so many and so vocal. I mean, wow. It got exhausting. I guess if you hate, or are at least deeply suspicious of, anybody with a profound religious faith, you'll like it, and the more the better. It got tiresome for me
Ah, well. Uncle Stevie gotta eat. Hopefully, he's got the two-dimensional characterizations of stupid, evil Christians out of his system and can come up with something a little more compelling, along the lines of Duma Key (which I really enjoyed) or Bag of Bones, which was even better.
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41 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
Thought I'd given up on King..., November 28, 2009
Like many readers, I once loved Stephen King. Every book he wrote was an event my friends and I anticipated. My favorites? The Stand, It, Dead Zone, Salem's Lot, and Misery. But for the past 15 years, nothing King wrote had any real power. (I have not read Dumas Key, which I am told is quite good.) I thought the violence was gratuitous. The foul language was so excessive I could only shake my head with disgust. And then a friend bought Under the Dome because it was only $9. He started reading. He couldn't stop reading. So I bought a copy. And started reading. And couldn't stop reading until this morning when I finished the book with tears in my eyes. This is not a perfect book. But it gave me hours and hours (and hours) of reading pleasure. Before I finish this review I'd like to respond to a few trends I've noted in the negative reviews of the book.
1) Yes, there is still a lot of swearing. But, King's vocabulary no long seems most notable for his ability to use and re-use the f-bomb in a myriad of ways.
2) Yes, there's still lots of violence. Lots of gore. But, that is what any reader of King expects. I did not consider it gratuitous. There is a deeply rooted human evil at the core of this book, and that evil most clearly expresses itself through the violence of our daily lives. (Heck, that's one of the story's primary themes.)
3) A criticism of Republicans? As I don't think anyone other than the newspaper editor -- and a main character, Julia, -- was labeled a Republican, that criticism seems a little odd. Still, as I know very few Democrats who happily use the "n-word", homophobic slurs, or revel in self-righteous, hypocritical religiosity, I suppose Republicans might get their "undies in a bundle." King's criticism is a social criticism -- the main characters have all committed their evil deeds. The only thing that makes Barbie, Julia,Thurse, Rusty, and even the town drunk better than the racist, homophobic, religious bigots is that they are redeemable. And redeemed.
4) The length. Unfortunately, this darn book weighs too much. It could be shorter in that there is lots of wasted white space on the page and throughout the book. Still, kind of a foolish criticism.
In short, this is a great read. One of King's best. Certainly the best he's written in the past 15 years.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
I've just wasted a week of my life reading this, August 21, 2010
"Under the Dome" is a stand alone novel by Stephen King...it is 1072 pages in length.
I picked up this book because I was initially intrigued by the cover. I've read other Stephen King books before and was somewhat hesitant to buy this huge volume because of King's tendency to use large areas of unnecessary 'fill' to drag out his novels. However caution was thrown to the wind, and I purchased (regrettably) the book anyway.
*Spoiler*
A transparent alien dome has encapsulated and totally isolated the Maine town of Chester Mill from the rest of the world...welcome to this 2010 version of "The Lord of the Flies".
*End Spoiler*
The Positive:
1.)an interesting premise for a story; a story that had great potential...and had moments that were truly captivating and made me want to read on.
2.)a intriguing and splendid villain in the form of the delusional despot, Jim Rennie.
3.)a useful and detailed map of the 'domed' area of Chester Mill and surrounding area.
The Negative:
1.)a fairly predictable story line of events...a faltering 'good' faction versus the ever strengthening evil-doers.
2.)a lot (IMHO) of 'fill' areas...events and conversation that were, in fairness, related to the overall story, had in reality had little to do with anything other than make a long book even longer that it needed to be.
3.)and finally (and most important) a totally absurd ending to the 'dome' problem.
Conclusion:
I really liked the story here...it started out well...it had moments of great suspense and intrigue. I could even put up with some extended areas of 'very little going on' however, the ending just seemed to make the week I put into reading this novel, feel like a total and utter waste of time. I ended up wondering if King was simply tired and/or maybe just ran out of ideas. Whatever the case, the results were disappointing. 2 Stars.
R. Nicholson
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