200 Words or Less: Under the Dome by Stephen King

Welcome to 200 Words or Less, a weekly Friday feature here on The Tattooed Book Geek where I will bring to you reviews/thoughts of 200 words or less from the books I read before I started blogging. We all have them, books that we read and loved or even read and hated before we decided to start blogging and what better way than a quick fire review of 200 words or less to share your thoughts on them.

My Choice:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when — or if — it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens — town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing — even murder — to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

---

Under the Dome by Stephen King.

Under the Dome focuses on a town that is one day trapped under a mysterious dome. It’s a slow-paced and character driven read showcasing the degradation of society under adverse and stressful conditions, a character study, as the residents struggle to cope with their new lives living in the pressure cooker of he dome.

You have an eclectic cast of characters that you come to care about and in ‘Big Jim’ Rennie and his son, Junior, you get a couple of villains added to the tale that you really hate. Unfortunately it’s when you reach those final pages that things start falling apart.

A book is a journey, its ending the destination. The ending for Under the Dome leaves you thinking WTF, questioning the destination and lamenting the hours spent getting there. The climax is an absolute head scratcher.

For the most part the book is a pleasure to read, for 950 pages of the books gigantic 1000 plus page length it’s a 5* read, you lose yourself in King’s story and I’d recommend it. Just be warned that the last 50 pages and ending are a 1* read and will unfortunately leave you with a bitter aftertaste.

---

Quotes from Under the Dome:

“She can’t help it,’ he said. ‘She’s got the soul of a poet and the emotional makeup of a junkyard dog.”

“If you can’t laugh when things go bad–laugh and put on a little carnival–then you’re either dead or wishing you were.”

“Murder is like potato chips: you can’t stop with just one.”

“Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead,”

---

 Follow me on:

Twitter, Goodreads, Blog Facebook, Personal Facebook.

Advertisement