Review of Under the Dome by Stephen King
This book is enormous, over a thousand pages. It's also a masterpiece. Not quite on par with The Stand, but close.
On a perfectly normal day in Chester's Mill, Maine, an invisible force field comes crashing down. Planes crash into it. Trucks collide with it. A man's hand is severed.
An investigation unfolds by the U.S. government along with the inside help of Dale Barbara, a short-order cook and Iraq veteran, and several concerned citizens, including some rag-tag kids and the town's newspaper owner.
Standing against them is the town's mayor, who will stop at nothing to keep his reign of power, assisted by his son, who's hiding a terrible secret.
But their main adversary is the dome itself. Because time is not just short. It's running out.
Trigger warning: rape and implied necrophilia.
This is one of Stephen King's finest works. In a way only Stephen King can, he delves into the minds of dozens of people in Chester's Mill, showing their best and worst, sometimes on the same page. It's both dark and wonderful in the way it captures humanity in crisis.
People in this kind of situation will go to extremes they never normally would, both good and bad, to preserve themselves and what they love. If what they love is power, in the case of Jim Rennie, the town mayor, the results will be dark and frightening. If what they love is healing and helping people, like the physician's assistant that works at the hospital, he'll run on empty for days just to make sure the people of Chester's Mill have medical care. Crises bring out the best and worst in everyone.
The snapshot of what it means to be human contained in this book was both scary and beautiful. An incredible book.
On a perfectly normal day in Chester's Mill, Maine, an invisible force field comes crashing down. Planes crash into it. Trucks collide with it. A man's hand is severed.
An investigation unfolds by the U.S. government along with the inside help of Dale Barbara, a short-order cook and Iraq veteran, and several concerned citizens, including some rag-tag kids and the town's newspaper owner.
Standing against them is the town's mayor, who will stop at nothing to keep his reign of power, assisted by his son, who's hiding a terrible secret.
But their main adversary is the dome itself. Because time is not just short. It's running out.
Trigger warning: rape and implied necrophilia.
This is one of Stephen King's finest works. In a way only Stephen King can, he delves into the minds of dozens of people in Chester's Mill, showing their best and worst, sometimes on the same page. It's both dark and wonderful in the way it captures humanity in crisis.
People in this kind of situation will go to extremes they never normally would, both good and bad, to preserve themselves and what they love. If what they love is power, in the case of Jim Rennie, the town mayor, the results will be dark and frightening. If what they love is healing and helping people, like the physician's assistant that works at the hospital, he'll run on empty for days just to make sure the people of Chester's Mill have medical care. Crises bring out the best and worst in everyone.
The snapshot of what it means to be human contained in this book was both scary and beautiful. An incredible book.
Photo Credit: Katherine Elizabeth
Stars Image Credit: lovethenerddesigns
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