Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Under the Dome by Stephen King

Under the Dome, by Stephen King, is a big book.  A really big book.  Over 1000 pages of big book.  Thank goodness I chose to read this on my Kindle!  First off, I want to say that I loved the book.  I thought it was great.  The only bad thing I have to say is that it took me forever to read it.  I think it took me over a month, which is just ridiculous!  Yet it was all good.  I'm going to blame the Olympics again.  Watching all those events sucked a great deal of my reading time away.

Under the Dome is the first Stephen King novel I've read.  I've read On Writing, which is excellent, and I've read his columns in Entertainment Weekly.  I've also seen many movies based on his books so I'm not completely out of the loop.  That being said, I still wasn't prepared for the chipmunk dying at the beginning of the book.  Wow.   I had to put the book down for a bit after that!  And that was just the start.

The story is about a small town in Maine that is trapped by a dome that clamps down over the town.  Things turn chaotic very quickly as the town Selectman, Big Jim Rennie, starts taking over.  He thrives on the chaos as he wants very much to be in control.  He's very evil.  I don't want to give much away but there is a clear line drawn between good and evil.  There are the rebels, fighting to find an answer and destroy the dome.  There are those who are working for Big Jim who follow orders blindly.  And there are those who are just trying to keep their families safe.

This is a book that makes you wonder what you would do, trapped in a town, freedom taken away.  It's a great big interesting book.  I recommend it.

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