To say I am a fan of Stephen King might be putting it too mildly. I own nearly all of his works. Not all, but most. I'm not a total 'homer' though. There are some books of his that I have picked up and have not been able to get through. They just were unable to 'hook' me.
I love the hook. That moment when you are reading a book and you become immersed in the experience. That moment when you start contemplating losing sleep just to get another chapter or two in. You start looking for those open moments in your day so you can get back to reading.That hasn't been the case with most of his recent work. Blaze, Under the Dome and 11/22/63 are among some of my favorite King works. Doctor Sleep continues that string of really good reads. However I won't go so far as to say it is among my favorites. I try to keep that list on the shorter end.
This book did not end the way I expected it to. I was surprised that it didn't go in the normal vein of a typical King clustermug. Instead this book ended exactly the way I wanted it to. I won't go into too many details as it would be really easy to ruin the outcome.
If I were to voice my one complaint about the book, and it didn't really strike me until I started writing this. I would have to say that the character development wasn't as in depth as we've seen from previous works. We get to know Dan even more. And we get to know Abra pretty well. But everyone else is kept on the fringe when it comes to really feeling them. This includes the 'bad guys' which, for some, may feel like a shortcoming.
Of course I recommend this book. If you are any kind of King or Horror fan and you haven't read this book already, do yourself a favor and pick it up. King does bring back the supernatural and gore so be prepared for that (if you are a King novice).
