"It's a small town, baby, and we all support the team."

Wow. What an amazing read. So, I have to be honest. I'm taking a moment and patting myself on the back. Because 1,074 pages is just...a lot. it's a lot to read. and most times, I look at a book that big and just think - No, I DO NOT have the time for this.

But I really wanted to read this. I haven't seen the show and I know absolutely nothing about the book.

But it's written by [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]. I love Stephen King. I've been reading him for as long as I can remember. I've always loved him

and this one did NOT disappoint. I didn't mind the bad guys being REALLY bad and I didn't mind the good guys being a shade of grey and not too squeaky clean. I loved the town and the world and how all engrossing it is. I had no problem keeping it all in line and really looked forward to each day when I would read my one chapter.

and I'm even okay with the explanation. I thoroughly enjoyed the science, theory, religion and even craziness that is being Under the Dome.

so, let's listen to Julia's wise words:

"Close your eyes and click your heels three times," Julia thought. "Because there's no place like Dome."

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! ( )

And then we come to the book I'd truly been dreading in my Great Stephen King Re-Read...

The last time I'd read this was within days of it coming out, so...almost fifteen years ago. And I don't recall being overly chuffed with it back then, and I do remember truly despising the ending of this one (no, I'm not one of those that prescribe to the "King can't write good endings" because he really can).

And, of course, between that reading and now, there was also the truly awful television show that I remember better than the book.

So, when I started this just over a week ago, I felt (and still do) that King kind of went on and on and on with the opening. Yes, I know he had to start giving a sense of all the players in this novel...and there's a LOT of players...as well as the impact the dome has on everyone, but it did outstay its welcome.

That being said, once the story actually began moving a bit, maybe around 250 pages in, when most books are starting to wrap up, I found I was actually somewhat enjoying it.

I will say, I did find that, maybe due to the sheer volume of characters, the ones in this novel felt a little more one-dimensional than I'm used to with King. The good guys were very good. And the bad guys were very bad, and there was very little gray in between. Though, as an avatar of the current political system, you probably couldn't find a better stand-in for the Orange One than Big Jim Rennie.

Still, a little more nuance, a little more gray would have been appreciated, but it also likely would have pushed the book out to 1400 pages, so...

The other thing that really got to me in a negative way was the way King slid into a very top-level omniscient view of the town and its characters for a single chapter around 760 pages in. He made a very weird stylistic choice for one chapter here (and revisited it briefly around page 950) and never used it again. It's things like this that do support the argument that King needs a more forceful editor.

Still, on the whole, while there was a lot going on here, I have to say, King locked almost all of it together really well and made it into a far more enjoyable story...with a more satisfying ending than I originally thought...than I remembered. I'm honestly starting to think much of the stink I believed this book to have came from the television show.

I doubt I'll ever read this again, but I will say I did enjoy it far more on the re-read. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. The ending wasn't as spectacular as I expected, but it was a satisfying read. ( )

I did not break my promise to myself not to purchase any more King ever. I got this because me and the boy started listening to audio books like old fashioned radio. Gathered round the speakers to hear a tale. Alas, (and rather good on the boy's part), this failed to capture the imagination and was abandoned by the boy in fairly short order. I did listen to the end and as with nearly all latter day King, was disappointed and mad with myself for having wasted the time. I guess I have outgrown comic book villains and heroes in book form--they still can give me great pleasure as movies as sources of fleeting entertainment. I am not so happy to throw more than 2 hours at it in book form. I will not do this again. I am getting quite a list of authors whose original bright light has been replaced by a neon green money sign that flashes on and off, on and off. One of the positions I took quite early in life was that genre writing did not automatically confer the kiss of death on an author. That there were authors who transcended the genre for one reason or another: quality of writing, breadth of ideas, deft handling of plot or characters. And there are. It is just that within this niche I have found that quite a large number of them eventually give up and start producing genre trash. They can generally get my money for the first few trash novels as I cling to the hope that it is not the beginning of a trend but simply a bad patch they will overcome. And then I smarten up and acknowledge that they are done for. I came to this conclusion about King many a novel back. So why three stars? In this age of independent publishing and electronic books I am forced to give three stars to any book that has punctuation, grammar and some semblance of writing above and beyond high school level. I won't deny that King has that. ( )

Over a thousand pages? Really, Stephen King? I mean, I know you LOVE to write and most of your books are pretty long, but this is a little over the top, even for a huge fan of your writing, such as myself. Overall, this is a typical King novel (and if you read a lot of Stephen King, you know what I mean). I can't think of anything GREAT about it, because it was just mediocre. I can think of what annoyed me. The characters...they were, uhm, kind of like cardboard cutouts. This isn't anything like The Stand where we actually get to know the characters and love them. By the end of the novel, I still didn't find myself caring THAT much at who lived or died. That being said, this all takes place within a week so maybe that isn't even feasible.

Anyway, a decent read but definitely not the best Stephen King novel ever written. ( )