Genre: HorrorRating: A-
For: RIP VI Challenge
From: Bought it from Amazon
Since this was such a huge undertaking, Jenny and I decided to read it together, and then invite anyone to join us for an official RIP group read. You've seen our efforts over the last month with weekly update posts here:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
But the purpose of this post is do a "normal" review! Despite the size of the book, the story is actually quite simple. An invisible dome falls down around this small town one Saturday morning, suddenly, without warning. Several people die instantly or shortly after. The crisis has quickly begun.
The town is run by a city council of sorts. One guy on that council has a secret to hide and he is afraid that because of this new situation, he will be found out. Besides that, he is totally power hungry, evil and downright creepy. He has many of the town's key players in the palm of his hand and he sets out to protect his secret and to maintain control of the town.
Meanwhile, he has a psychotic son who begins a murder spree at the very same time the dome falls. When the two get together, you can only imagine what they get up to.
Of course, there's a few sort of normal people who manage to find each other and together try to discover what's causing the dome and how to solve the mess being caused by the above mentioned crazies. Will they succeed? Will they figure out what the dome really is? Will the crazies win?
This is what keeps a person glued to the page.
That and the amazing cast of characters that are so fascinating and so brilliantly written. This was my favorite part of this huge massive book, the characters themselves and how easy it was to get to know them, to care about them, to root and cheer for them, or to be disgusted by them. What a ride it was, really.
Bottom line: I was totally enthralled by this one!
Other Reviews:
Alternate Readality
Life... With Books
Book Chatter
Lost in Books
I really enjoyed this interview with Stephen King about Under the Dome, so I thought I'd throw it in here for those interested:
Fun interview. It's always interesting to see what the author has to say. Especially when you thought you had it all figured out.
ReplyDeleteI have read so many Stephen King novels and he's one of my all time favorite story tellers, but I have to tell you, Under the Dome did not do it for me. I read the entire thing, but there were too many points of view and I couldn't care for that many characters. I like his expansive novels in general, but this one would shift point of view to often and sometimes for only a paragraph or two. I really thought it was a writer's exercise to see how many points of view he could shuffle. I did like the analogy to our world and global warming. I did like the Chef character and Sanders and their relationship. I did like the idea of a dispassionate God (the alien kids). It was a great concept, but I couldn't get too attached to the story and the characters because of the ever shifting points of view. It was not as engaging to me as all of the other King novels I've read.
ReplyDeleteInteresting... I guess the many points of view didn't bother me too bad. I do agree, there were a lot though! I liked that it made me feel like I knew what was going on all over that crazy city.
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