Under the Dome: Part Two
Ratings23
Average rating3.4
spoilers
What I have always loved about Stephen King is that he takes everyday things and says, “What if...?” I had a hard time getting into this one because I made the mistake of reading it after the television series finished. And I can see why the ratings kept going down on the series for Stephen King fans. You expect some alterations in a story line, but the series was NOTHING like the book, and I'm not talking about only the ending. So once I got past the inevitable attempt to compare the book to the series, I was able to get more engrossed in the story.
So what is the “what if”? I have found myself many times as an adult saying to a child torturing a bug, “How would you like it if some giant creature that sees you as a bug decided it would be fun to torture you?” And that's basically it. The residents of Chester's Mill are being played with by alien children. Of course, at the beginning of the story, we don't know that's what's happening. I saw it more as a story about what would happen to a small town of people who seemed to like each other and then they were suddenly all trapped and the mindset became every man for himself. All in all, I loved it like I love everything Stephen King does. :-) That said, I'm not sure I was crazy about the ending. It felt too convenient. We are all about to die, let's beg for mercy, and wow we got it. But I'm still giving it 4 stars because he's still my absolute favorite!
I spent way too much time reading this book to have it end the way it did.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
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Now that I've gotten that out of the way. This story is full of stereotypical characters and all sorts of -ist language. Sometimes when the journey is amazing, I can appreciate it and be grateful for that even if the destination is less than satisfying. Unfortunately, this journey made me (ಠ_ಠ) a lot and I could tell early on that I was going to be dissatisfied with the explanation. And then I was.
S'not entirely terrible. But the (ಠ_ಠ) bits make it not worth the slog. Especially when there are so many really good King books to read.