Book Review - Under the Dome

Under the Dome (2009)

by Stephen King

I started reading this book during the last week of December.  I just finished it today, May 8.  Granted, it was 1072 pages, but that either tells you that (a) I'm a slow reader (and I think that my reading of a book a week last year disproves this), or (b) it's just not that good.

The answer is certainly (b).  A cast of characters awakes one morning in their little rural Maine town only to discover that a giant clear dome has been placed over their whole community (a la The Simpsons Movie).  What happens underneath the dome is a power struggle and, in usual King fashion, evil rears its ugly head.  We've got the sexual deviants, the smarter-than-normal kids, and the normal folk who get sucked in to the chaos.  And chaos certainly reigns.

While the book reads easily, there's fifteen characters too many, none of whom are anything unique.  Too many storylines here to really allow me to care about any of these people.

And I'm not even going to discuss one of the most ridiculous endings to a novel that I've ever read.  I can't tell you how angry I was to have gotten through 1060 pages only to have the book end the way it did.  King had no clue how to end this thing and it shows in what is an awful, awful conclusion.

Had King cut this down by half and crafted a better ending, this might have worked, but as it reads now, it's a dud.