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heathercatherineo 's review for:
Dreamcatcher
by Stephen King
My feelings on this novel can be summed up by a shrug of the shoulders and non-committal "Eh."
Having recently read The Shining, I was somewhat disappointed with Dreamcatcher. The premise was certainly an intriguing one; I like the general idea that Stephen King had with this novel, I just think it was shoddy execution.
There were some thrilling and frightening moments, especially in the first half of the book, but the whole novel was unnecessarily long. There could have been more thrilling and frightening moments in the second half if King hadn't felt it necessary to drag out the action as much as possible, and try and establish a deeper theme and complex theme by repeating himself over and over in different ways. By the time I finally got to the three-quarter mark, I found myself thinking, When will this book end?.
I certainly appreciate novels that make you think, and novels that have more to them than simply surface-level action. However, I think Stephen King missed the mark in attempting to make this about more than just the aliens and the action there. I think the whole dreamcatcher metaphor was a shaky one at best, and while I appreciate that King creatively weaved in the backstory of the five boys throughout the novel, it simultaneously resulted in a novel that became repetitive and clogged up toward the end. I just wanted to tell Stephen King "OKAY, WE GET IT, I SEE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON?"
Overall, the plot was an entertaining and interesting one. But for such an intriguing plot to work with, King managed to make it crawl at a snail's pace toward the end rather than wrapping it up in a powerful way. If he had cut out at least half the novel and condensed it, it would probably be way better.
Having recently read The Shining, I was somewhat disappointed with Dreamcatcher. The premise was certainly an intriguing one; I like the general idea that Stephen King had with this novel, I just think it was shoddy execution.
There were some thrilling and frightening moments, especially in the first half of the book, but the whole novel was unnecessarily long. There could have been more thrilling and frightening moments in the second half if King hadn't felt it necessary to drag out the action as much as possible, and try and establish a deeper theme and complex theme by repeating himself over and over in different ways. By the time I finally got to the three-quarter mark, I found myself thinking, When will this book end?.
I certainly appreciate novels that make you think, and novels that have more to them than simply surface-level action. However, I think Stephen King missed the mark in attempting to make this about more than just the aliens and the action there. I think the whole dreamcatcher metaphor was a shaky one at best, and while I appreciate that King creatively weaved in the backstory of the five boys throughout the novel, it simultaneously resulted in a novel that became repetitive and clogged up toward the end. I just wanted to tell Stephen King "OKAY, WE GET IT, I SEE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON?"
Overall, the plot was an entertaining and interesting one. But for such an intriguing plot to work with, King managed to make it crawl at a snail's pace toward the end rather than wrapping it up in a powerful way. If he had cut out at least half the novel and condensed it, it would probably be way better.