Leeds Book Club: The Laini Challenge - Book 01

READ!	TO GO!
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The Lainibop Challenge

Under the Dome

by Stephen King

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The premise of this novel is simple enough, a small town is shaken when one day all of a sudden it becomes surrounded by an impenetrable dome.

This dome is completely clear and seems to slice down from the sky - straight through anything in its path - trees, animals and even people.

The town of Chester's Mill is now completely isolated from the rest of the world. Families are separated from
loved ones who had taken trips that day, and the town's second selectman decides that now is his time to shine.

Unfortunately for the people of Chester's Mill Big Jim is not the most giving person in the town, he uses this opportunity for his own good and doesn't care who he brings down in the process.

This was a ginormous read for me, it is 1074 pages long and yes it does feel that long if not longer.
I'd like to say that I enjoyed it, and I suppose I did in the end, however I noticed a lot of things which annoyed me throughout and left me feeling a bit empty when I finally got through it.

Firstly, I used to be a big fan of Stephen King, I love all his old works, like The Dark Half, It, and the beginning novels of the Dark Tower series. However I haven't relished his more recent books half as much.
This book felt to me a little bit like repetition. Ok so he's never written a book about a town trapped under a dome before, but he has written a lot about communities which have to survive the unexpected and compete against those trying to bring them down. Cell for example and even one of his classics The Stand. Apart from the plots, his style of writing is becoming very reiterative. For example he tends to use the following device quite a bit, (my own words here) “They kissed each
other goodbye and that was the last kiss they would ever have....” “As she said goodbye to him, little did she realise that the next time they met, he would be lying in the morgue...” .

Now while this serves to interest the reader as to how this character will die in the next few chapters, when repeated as much as it is, it becomes old and loses the shock factor a little.

While the story was good in it's own way, I have to say that I really miss the Stephen King of old. I have just found out that he is releasing another book in the Dark Tower series and even though, the first 3 books are amongst my favourite novels ever, I don't think I will be purchasing the latest. For anyone who hasn't read King before, let me recommend you start on the good old classics which, as we all know, they can't be beaten, well at least not by Stephen any more by the looks of things.

Score 6/10

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