Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)

[elusivek]

Doctor Sleep
Stephen King
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An epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

King says he wanted to know what happened to Danny Torrance, the boy at the heart of The Shining, after his terrible experience in the Overlook Hotel. The instantly riveting DOCTOR SLEEP picks up the story of the now middle-aged Dan, working at a hospice in rural New Hampshire, and the very special twelve-year old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless - mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the 'steam' that children with the 'shining' produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him and a job at a nursing home where his remnant 'shining' power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes 'Doctor Sleep.'

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan's own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra's soul and survival . . .

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I was worried, after reading The Shining and my original high expectations of that book... but, I decided I had to finish Doctor Sleep as well.

And I was also worried as I read some reviews too. I'm usually of the skeptical type of reader.

Indeed, my worries weren't unfounded.

The Shining, despite my not liking the monologues and the way of thinking of the character, had a really interesting plot.

With Doctor Sleep, I found it more... I dunno... Anime-ish.  The world suddenly had a new race of semi-devils or aliens and now Danny and the gang go hunting for them. ha-ha. Not.

To keep it all polite, I wasn't impressed.