Insomnia

my library wouldn't let me renew it so I had to return it :( 
Will be requesting another copy ASAP!

Everyone needs a Ralph in their life. Some bits are really good some bits are really really dull.

The plot of this book is great, the characters are great, and the climax is so much fun (and then annoying), but this book is just too damn long. My attention really started to wane around the 70% mark. The Dark Tower connections were a lot of fun and I'm a little confused why people don't commonly mention this book as one of King's fantasy novels because it fully is. It's not a horror book, it's fantasy.

The ending of this book does a thing that I hate a lot, that King has done before, that I can't get into because of spoilers, but most people will not be bothered by this because it's incredibly specific to me. Definitely recommend this one, should be more well known among King fans.

Do NOT listen to the audiobook. Just don't do it. Listen to anything else instead. Listen to traffic outside. Listen to the sounds of your stomach when you're hungry. Listen to your neighbors singing karaoke. Anything, besides this book. I didn't particularly love Eli Wallach's narration (very quiet and unemotive) but what really makes this a bad audiobook experience is the sound effects. Sweet lord, it is atrocious. There are no words to adequately convey how much I wanted to drive my car into a ravine every time I heard these damn noises. Think of a cat howling when you step on its tail, mixed with nails on a chalk board, a Nine Inch Nails song outro, and a person screaming from underwater and you have a vague approximation of the jarring noise this audiobook made every 11 minutes. I hate it.

2.5 stars

This was one of those books where I had to read all the way to the end to know how I felt about it and unfortunately it was a disappointment. I was into the story at first and wanted to know how it was going to play out. I wanted to know what the point was. The more I read the more I just wanted it to be over. I was kind of into it but also bored at the same time. It was drug out too much. It didn't need to be as long as it was and even still, once I finished it, I was left still wanting to know the point. For a book called Insomnia the majority of the book was about abortion and religion. I was expecting a book about insomnia and what happens to people who experience it and I guess we did kind of get that but not in the way I expected. Sometimes I wish King would write a book that didn't deal with any kind of supernatural elements because there have been several times where I have read one of his books and said the supernatural elements ruined the book for me and that's kind of the case with this one. Definitely not a favorite King but at least I can mark it off my list now. 

This book is highly related to the dark tower. If you did not read the dark tower, I don't think you could appreciate it the same.

Anyway, even if sometimes it seems like the plot becomes really weird and the begining in really slow, characters are well written and the suspense is goodly described.

A reread for me of this exploration of the multiverse and a reintroduction to the little bald doctors that make the world go round for the purpose and the random.

King made me cry like a baby for the second time with one of his books.

On an objective level, the story wasn't particularly special, but something about it just made me love it anyway, especially the characters.

It took me a bit longer than usual, but I got through it! I'm glad I stuck with it too, it ended up being quite the wild ride. Mr. King really sticks the landing on this one, and it had a lot of fun references to “It” and “The Dark Tower” for the fans.

All in all, a very good read and I definitely recommend it to Steven King fans.

Colorful auras, balloon life strings, long-timers, short-timers and the deliriums of insomnia. It's one of those usual Stephen King horror flicks and by far the longest one that I've read (nearly took me a month). It's too long and at times you feel like the plot isn't going anywhere. But that's the thing about King. He takes it really slow and then surprises the readers when it matters the most. The story line seems a bit dull but King manages to pull it off in style with his rich imagery and brilliant narration style. The characters are developed pretty well. King here, breaks the stereotype of young and dashing protagonists by portraying Ralph Roberts as an old guy in his 60's and yet manages to charm the readers. I especially enjoyed the chemistry between Ralph and Louis. What I didn't like about this book is that it's too long and sometimes you feel like giving up on it. Also, I was disappointed by the antagonist ‘King Crimson'. He didn't live up to his hype and could have been better. Overall it's a good tale if you've some time to spend. It's not an easy read and patience is the only key here. I'm looking forward to reading the Dark Tower series after this!

There are many people for whom the book “Insomnia” will serve as a cure for the titular condition. It's an 800 page book that takes about 150 pages to start making sense – the first quarter of the book is all strange goings-on with no exposition.
Our hero, an old man with a dying wife, begins loosing sleep and (he thinks) hallucinating. He can see auras around people, fields of light that change according to their mood and health and terminate in a long “balloon-string,” their soul. And if that's not strange enough, he starts seeing three little bald men dressed as surgeons, who go around snipping people's strings.
It's all very psychedelic and intriguing, but I can see someone giving up on the book before it really gets rolling. Which would be a shame, because the plot kicks in around page 150 and it's a heck of a ride, all the more enjoyable if you don't know what's coming.
Suffice to say that this is the multiverse-hopping, cosmic guru King of The Stand and It, not the bare-bones King of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Running Man (I like ‘em both, if you were wondering). Insomnia is actually a better read than both The Stand and It, because it is more closely tied into the world as we know it. Most importantly, the characters are complex and believable, truly people worth knowing.
So if you've got the attention span and the physical strength to lift this book, definitely pick it up.

Insomnia is really a Dark Tower novel. I takes about 500 pages to get there, but then you are smacked in the ka with a tower, a dark figure, a king with guns on his hips, and the meaning of the whole struggle of the book as a footnote in the levels of the world. A fun read even if you haven't read any of the Dark Tower, there are moments where it drags. But at 700 pages, that's not a shock.

Nelle mie recensione dei precedenti libri del Re, ho sempre descritto come i suoi libri siano trattati da me come vini pregiati, da leggere (bere) nel momento giusto magari dopo un libro (vino) che ti ha lasciato un cattivo sapore in bocca, perchè qualsiasi romanzo (bottiglia) prendi dalla tua libreria (cantina) non puoi che scegliere bene se è scritto (imbottigliato) da King.

Questa volta però appena aperto il libro (stappato la bottiglia) mi sono accorto subito che sapeva un po' di tappo e il colore nel mio bicchiere non era il solito rosso rubino. Al contrario di molti lettori di questa opera non ho trovato tanto pesante le prime pagine, ma proprio la parte centrale di libro, che si salva nel finale.

Non si può non apprezzare i tanti rimandi alla serie della Torre Nera e al pistolero Roland, per me figura leggendaria, ma davvero ho stentato in molte parti del libro. Bellissime le descrizioni dei mondi “paralleli” e l'idea delle aure intorno alle persone e il cordoncino da palloncino e via dicendo e non si può certo non gustarsi e tifare per un personaggio come Ralph o i dottorini calvi, ma per esempio ho trovato il personaggio di Lois insopportabile.

Alcune, forse troppe, parti di una lentezza esasperante sono controbilanciate da descrizioni di momenti di rara bellezza letteraria, una su tutte la parte dell'incidente con la macchina di Ed.

Insomma io consiglierei questo libro ai fan del Re, di certo non lo proporrei ad un profano dell'autore, a cui consiglierei sicuramente di iniziare con altri titoli; un filo, diciamo un piccolo gomitoli, sotto alla media di quelli letti da me fino ad ora.