Bears are extremely hard to please!!! Try as we might!!! Can, Bears have a happy holiday at least? Name my contribution and you will have it!! LOLOriginally Posted by Jean
Bears are extremely hard to please!!! Try as we might!!! Can, Bears have a happy holiday at least? Name my contribution and you will have it!! LOL
28 in 23 (?)!!!!
63 in '23!!!!!!!!!!
My Collection: https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ion-Merlin1958
The Houston Astros cheated Major League Baseball from 2017-18!!!! Is that how we teach our kids to play the game now?????
YES! So I am not crazy after all. I felt exactly the same way. I analyzed this briefly somewhere in this thread. 11/22/63 and Joyland especially (fantastic book!) felt a lot more real and genuine.
bears are very easy to please. By anything genuine. For example, your friendship and goodmind make bears perfectly happy!Bears are extremely hard to please!!! Try as we might!!! Can, Bears have a happy holiday at least? Name my contribution and you will have it!! LOL
I remember that you started disliking Dr.Sleep, but I thought you ended up liking it?YES! So I am not crazy after all. I felt exactly the same way. I analyzed this briefly somewhere in this thread. 11/22/63 and Joyland especially (fantastic book!) felt a lot more real and genuine.
: loves Joyland too :
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, I can overlook the writing in favour of the story. I like it, but I don't like it like it.
: nods :
I was mainly dissatisfied with the story, though. The writing, I could swallow it as a necessary evil in many King books.
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wasn't too impressed with Joyland either...for the same reasons above, but I was willing to give it a pass because it was an $8 paperback. But "Dr Sleep" is meant to be a major epic, and it feel contrived and fake, and overwritten like it's an affectation, not a true style.
The thing is, SK of the 1970s-80s was an unbelievable writer - the story was secondary. Now, I'm hoping for a good story so I can get past the writing, and "Sleep" is not providing it...still a long way to go, but I'm forcing myself to read it, which is never a good sign.
My thoughts:
The earliest part of the book felt me to be the strongest – Danny’s struggles with alcoholism, Abra’s parents’ dawning realization of their daughter’s talents. The characters seemed more interesting, the mystery more veiled, the suspense more taut. The scene with the child with the bag of cocaine is one of the more vivid ones in the book -- deliberately so, I know, as it becomes a personal touchstone for Danny...but still. Once the story was fully under way, there was a chronic lack of narrative tension and suspense, of depth and true conflict.
While the idea of a caravan of vampires in motorhomes is an intriguing one, for villains who are ages old and purportedly pose such a threat, they were surprisingly fragile and easy to vanquish. Not very bright, either. I thought the long-distance mental battles between the main female Knot member and Abra were fairly compelling, but otherwise, though, the Knot seemed rather pallid as foes.
The inclusion of the Overlook connection is a good example to illustrate the lack of cohesive, contextual suspense in the book. The setting of Overlook was entirely incidental and blatantly coincidental; it added nothing to the story nor revealed any subtext and felt like authorial pandering...the setting could have been anywhere. Much like Danny's talent in helping his hospice patients die and move on, these purposeless narrative plots points seemed tacked on and ultimately went nowhere. They only added to the sense that this was a paint-by-numbers book, a piecing together of narrative components where the whole did not in fact become greater than its (already wanting) parts.
There was also a lack of valid characterization in this book. Along with inspiring a general lack of narrative interest or investment of concern among all characters, Abra's phone call wherein this 14-year-old was able to adopt a completely different persona and attitude rang false. In her and others, there was a lack of consistency and depth that added to the sense that that the words on the page were words only...the story never quite came alive. A shame, as there were flickers of opportunity with the Abra character, yet King continually pushed her potential in the background while dwelling on the uninspired Danny character. I didn't want a repeat of FIRESTARTER, but at least that novel allowed both adult and child to come to the fore and establish their identity though action and emotion...something DOCTOR SLEEP and its generally flat characterization could have used far more of.
R.e. the familial relationship between Dan and Abra, that too is yet another example of this paint-by-numbers approach wherein coincidence replaced narrative depth, a narrative misstep that seemed to me more at home in a soap-opera drama than in a novel by an author of King's talent.
While there have been King books I have disliked more, DOCTOR SLEEP was a distinct disappointment, following as it did on the heels of such great recent works as 11/22/62, JOYLAND, and, yes, even UNDER THE DOME. It’s not a bad novel, per se, but it certainly leaves much to be desired, both as a standalone and, perhaps especially, as a sequel to one of the genre’s true classic works, THE SHINING.
Thank you RC65: a very good review, and much of it is exactly what I was going to say. (I hope to post a more detailed reply tomorrow, if nothing happens)
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have to agree... I have been very busy and even though I am.. I find a little fight in me to get through it. Where as some of my fav King books... busy or not... they were done in a couple of days. Like his recent 11/22/62 I could not put down. I can remember faking sick when I was young in order to stay home and read more IT!!!! Not every book by every writer is great, like not every movie by a great director is always perfect... I think what makes them stand out is the timeless works and I am sure many here can attest to the fact Mr King has many....
HELP ME FIND
Insomnia #459
ANY S/L #459
Someone please tell me thatSpoiler:It makes me want to stop reading it.
He is indeed but I don't understand why that would make you stop reading.
I really liked this book. It's even better than The Shining which was never one of my favorites to begin with.
I'm actually re-reading The Shining for the first time in years. I've noticed there were a lot of connections in Dr. Sleep that I completely missed because it's been so long.
Hearts are tough, she said, most times hearts don't break, and I'm sure that's right . . . but what about then? What about who we were then? What about hearts in Atlantis?
It would make me stop reading it bc it's silly soap opera nonsense.
He could have come up with something better and more original.
I don't know... maybe if the story was that the uncle/niece relationship came about because of a coma, and an evil twin I would say that it was soap opera nonsense. But there are a great many people who find out later in life that they have sisters/brothers/family due to "accidents" that happen under the influence of alcohol.
I didn't mind it at all. I just thought it played well with the realities/consequences of alcoholism.
"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."
Agreed 100%. A man goes on a bender, has a one night stand, woman gets pregnant and out of millions and millions of people, the child turns out to be Dan's niece and they actually meet? All the while the group of people who actually live off of kids like Abra missed her entirely but honed in on the baseball kid with a modest "shine" at best? WEAK.
Well they only met because Abra was able to psychically communicate with Tony. It's not like they just randomly bumped into one another, that would be a stretch (although even then it'd fall under 'ka'). If anything, them being related makes more sense as to why they'd be able to have such a connection in the first place.
My only issue was Jack having an affair for reasons I've stated elsewhere.
A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.
My Collection
Wait - if Jack had an affair, and the child is Abra, wouldn't she be Dan's half-sister? (yeah, this is probably a spoiler..whatever...live with it).
Jack had an affair with Abra's grandmother. Which means Abra's mother is Dan's half-sister.
Hearts are tough, she said, most times hearts don't break, and I'm sure that's right . . . but what about then? What about who we were then? What about hearts in Atlantis?
It was still a weak way to connect the story. no originality.Jack had an affair with Abra's grandmother. Which means Abra's mother is Dan's half-sister.
I beg to differ. I thought it was a nice tie-in to the first book and a neat way to tie a ribbon around the whole thing. Even though I saw the twist coming early on. I admit that I had a very big smile on my face from page one to the end. As I have said before, it was like visiting an old friend.It was still a weak way to connect the story. no originality.Jack had an affair with Abra's grandmother. Which means Abra's mother is Dan's half-sister.
I dare say that a few of the detractors here, had he gone another way and not had many tie-in's" to the first book, would be complaining that it wasn't enough of a sequel and didn't tie to "The Shining" enough. I thought that he masterfully walked the sequel "tight rope" and finished strong once again (as he did with "11/22/63"). "Ending" books has been a pet peeve with me regarding King for a long string of novels. Can anyone say "Under The Dome"? JMHO of course.
28 in 23 (?)!!!!
63 in '23!!!!!!!!!!
My Collection: https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ion-Merlin1958
The Houston Astros cheated Major League Baseball from 2017-18!!!! Is that how we teach our kids to play the game now?????
I just finished this book and loved it. I wouldn't say this is a literary masterpiece but I enjoyed the story and it kept me reading well into the night for several nights. Not many books make me do that anymore.
The tie-ins were okay but the cadence and style of the writing is what really brought it home for me. Enjoyed every minute of it even though I did have similar complaints as others in this thread.
Didn't Like:
Spoiler:
Liked:
Spoiler:
I beg to differ. I thought it was a nice tie-in to the first book and a neat way to tie a ribbon around the whole thing. Even though I saw the twist coming early on. I admit that I had a very big smile on my face from page one to the end. As I have said before, it was like visiting an old friend.It was still a weak way to connect the story. no originality.Jack had an affair with Abra's grandmother. Which means Abra's mother is Dan's half-sister.
I dare say that a few of the detractors here, had he gone another way and not had many tie-in's" to the first book, would be complaining that it wasn't enough of a sequel and didn't tie to "The Shining" enough. I thought that he masterfully walked the sequel "tight rope" and finished strong once again (as he did with "11/22/63"). "Ending" books has been a pet peeve with me regarding King for a long string of novels. Can anyone say "Under The Dome"? JMHO of course.
My favorite book is The Shining, so of course I had high expectations when Doctor Sleep was announced. I enjoyed reading it, and it was a good book overall (3.5-4/5 for me). It was nice coming back to old characters and seeing what became of them. However, it was a very different kind of story than The Shinning in many ways previously listed in the above discussions.
It is very rare that a sequel is better than the original; especially when so much time passes between them. I just think that it was great how much The Shinning stayed on King’s mind over the years, and that he felt the need to continue Danny’s story in Doctor Sleep.
I think he did a great job for the sequel. Well done all the way around IMHO
28 in 23 (?)!!!!
63 in '23!!!!!!!!!!
My Collection: https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ion-Merlin1958
The Houston Astros cheated Major League Baseball from 2017-18!!!! Is that how we teach our kids to play the game now?????
I'm really having trouble with this one...think he should have skipped a sequel of the Shining and done one on the Cell...I'm not sure I'll ever finish it...
Never try to teach a pig to sing...it wastes your time and annoys the pig!
I don't feel it's really a sequel to The Shining, but more of its own book with references to The Shining incorporated. I think you could easily read Dr. Sleep without having read The Shining.
John
... or you could easily skip it and go read something else
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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