Doctor Sleep
by Stephen King
Published in 2013 (I finished it on August 24, 2014)

King writes quite well, but once you’ve read a lot of his works, the plots and characters do tend to get repetitive. For some, that’s a good thing. For others (e.g., moi), it’s not so special.

Yet, novels such as “Under the Dome” and “11/22/63” work very well for me as they aren’t really horror and take on new and fascinating directions. I won’t say I’m completely done with King, but I am certainly going to be choosier now.

“Doctor Sleep” is a follow-up to “The Shining.” It does have some very cool ideas and the characters are fleshed out remarkably well. The boy, Danny, is now an adult, and that duration of living with a “difficult” father is taking its toll on him. It’s probably no shocker to say that he’s an alcoholic, which allows the novel to explicate the problems those people have and how helpful AA can be for those that are able to stay with it. Like many of King’s novels, the guy certainly does his research (or hires others to) and writes with a good knowledge of the world and problems he’s creating.

But it does follow a fairly routine theme. Perhaps all horror novels have to. However, a nice deviation is that the bad people are not evil for evil’s sake, but do bad things in order to survive. Maybe it’s the same way vegetarians feel about carnivores, although with the “True Knot,” they have no other way to survive.

So be it, but I’m not giving up my steak dinners anytime soon.

In effect, it’s very well done and makes for a great story. If you haven’t overdone the horror genre or need to know what happened  after that eventful winter at the lodge, then pick up a copy. If horror no longer does the trick, then perhaps try the other two King novels I listed.

(Note: This was an audiobook experience for me. The narrator was Will Patton and does a superb job. As always, I’ve great respect for narrators of audiobooks. It can’t be an easy job.)

So many books … (you know the rest)