Under the Dome by Stephen King - Book Review #3

Under the Dome

by Stephen King

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.


It was really hard for me to write this review, because after I finished Stephen King’s Under the Dome, all I had was WOW and a *gasp*. But anyway, here it goes…

I loved this book, it is definitely a masterpiece, a page turner – fascinating project on how society might act when it was closed out. Under the Dome is a very complex read with huge characters cast, but despite that fact, all characters masterfully developed and flashed out, in a best Stephen King’s tradition.

The world of Under the Dome, as usually in all Stephen King’s books, is so vivid and real that you can fully dive into it. It is amazing how King can create and develop his worlds without any annoying, boring and unnecessary descriptions.

I found characters to be a bit too much stereotypical for my liking. However, may be it is the way it supposed to be, as per Stephen King himself, this is a fiction novel, not literate, and fiction novels are “about ordinary people in the extraordinary circumstances”, despite literate novels that are “about extraordinary people in the ordinary situations”.

Even though it is a complex read, it was built and structured very professionally, so reader can easily follow all plot and sub-plot lines. It is amazing how all the characters and events that at first seems not to be connected to each other are linking and coming together.

I wasn’t disappointed with the ending, unlike some people. I thought that the ending was the most appropriate and definitely in King’s style.

Under the Dome was one of those books that made me want to pick on what’s going to happen at the end so much that I almost had to tie myself down. It is definitely worth spending time to read this over a thousand page long epic.