A review by viljesvag
The Stand by Stephen King

challenging dark

4.0

I made it through! Overall I really enjoyed it, but oh man it's a long book. At several points I was torn between feelings of "I'm not gonna make it" and deeply caring about characters and needing to know what was going to happen next. And I guess that says something about the writing? Like, I think any novel of this length would be a somewhat challenging task (at least for me), but it still kept me hooked and invested enough to keep going. I never felt bored or anything, it was more of an external force of "gee I sure have a lot of books I want to read".

However: TW for a pretty graphic rape scene near the end, and other instances of sexual violence throughout the book. From what I've read by him, SK often falls into the trope trap of using (sexual) violence against women as a way of showing "this is a bad guy", and it sure does show that but often it's also in such graphic detail that it's massively uncomfortable to read.
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