Book Review
Oct. 18th, 2016 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariDoctor Sleep
by Stephen King
This is the sequel to The Shining, and it picks up with Danny Torrance a couple of decades after the events at the Overlook Hotel. Danny has fallen deep into the hole of alcoholism, and after hitting rock bottom, he finds himself in the small town of Frazier, NH. Here he finds work at a local hospice and discovers that his shining gives him the ability to help the patients through their dying moments. He also gets to know Abra, a young girl with a shining even more powerful than his. However, this being a Stephen King novel, there are horrors lying in wait for Abra and Danny. The True Knot is coming for Abra. A tribe of nigh-immortal quasi-vampires, they live off the energy generated by murdering children with the shining.
For all its ties to The Shining, Doctor Sleep is not really a horror novel - it's more of a supernatural thriller and a redemption story wrapped up in one. King does a great job with the characters - I continually rooted for Dan in his climb up from the bottom, and I quite liked Abra, especially her bravery and willpower in dealing with the True Knot. The secondary characters were well-done, too. I especially liked the way King wrote Abra's grandmother - he made her a very rich character and made it clear that she had a life that could fill a whole book on its own, but did it with such economy.
by Stephen King
This is the sequel to The Shining, and it picks up with Danny Torrance a couple of decades after the events at the Overlook Hotel. Danny has fallen deep into the hole of alcoholism, and after hitting rock bottom, he finds himself in the small town of Frazier, NH. Here he finds work at a local hospice and discovers that his shining gives him the ability to help the patients through their dying moments. He also gets to know Abra, a young girl with a shining even more powerful than his. However, this being a Stephen King novel, there are horrors lying in wait for Abra and Danny. The True Knot is coming for Abra. A tribe of nigh-immortal quasi-vampires, they live off the energy generated by murdering children with the shining.
For all its ties to The Shining, Doctor Sleep is not really a horror novel - it's more of a supernatural thriller and a redemption story wrapped up in one. King does a great job with the characters - I continually rooted for Dan in his climb up from the bottom, and I quite liked Abra, especially her bravery and willpower in dealing with the True Knot. The secondary characters were well-done, too. I especially liked the way King wrote Abra's grandmother - he made her a very rich character and made it clear that she had a life that could fill a whole book on its own, but did it with such economy.
