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kylepinion 's review for:
Insomnia
by Stephen King
DID NOT FINISH: 57%
Going to call this a DNF for the time being. I got about 450 pages in and realized it wasn't working for me at all. The premise is good, what happens to a guy that can't sleep? Tie that in with the fact that said guy is a senior citizen and we typically sleep less as we get older, and you have an exciting jumping off point.
It's just that King doesn't seem to know where to go from there. Insomnia is set in the same town as IT (Derry) and there's some pleasure to be had in returning to one of his best realized settings, but it's also considered a somewhat critical chapter in the broader Dark Tower saga. And again, getting a ground level view of the big universe shaking aspects of TDT and how it impacts King's small town Maine environs is not unworthy of elaborating on.
But again, it doesn't work. Insomnia spends hundreds of pages on its main character, just kind of dilly-dallying about, finding himself in the middle of a rising abortion debate (not irrelevant to today, but the way the arguments are framed feel extremely of their time) and ending up the target of his increasingly crazed neighbor turned spousal abuser. Then he starts seeing people's auras (kinda lame, Stephen) and eventually a trio of dwarf bald guys dressed up as doctors. Just when you think the book might get finally start to find some direction, the "doctors" end up being kind of annoying and the protagonist and his even more grating love interest start flinging auras at one of the doctors.
While I was interested to see how The Crimson King wrapped into all of this, I found myself just getting more and more annoyed each time I opened the book. I might try to get a little further on the audiobook while I'm running since I already invested in it, but it's time to move on.
It's just that King doesn't seem to know where to go from there. Insomnia is set in the same town as IT (Derry) and there's some pleasure to be had in returning to one of his best realized settings, but it's also considered a somewhat critical chapter in the broader Dark Tower saga. And again, getting a ground level view of the big universe shaking aspects of TDT and how it impacts King's small town Maine environs is not unworthy of elaborating on.
But again, it doesn't work. Insomnia spends hundreds of pages on its main character, just kind of dilly-dallying about, finding himself in the middle of a rising abortion debate (not irrelevant to today, but the way the arguments are framed feel extremely of their time) and ending up the target of his increasingly crazed neighbor turned spousal abuser. Then he starts seeing people's auras (kinda lame, Stephen) and eventually a trio of dwarf bald guys dressed up as doctors. Just when you think the book might get finally start to find some direction, the "doctors" end up being kind of annoying and the protagonist and his even more grating love interest start flinging auras at one of the doctors.
While I was interested to see how The Crimson King wrapped into all of this, I found myself just getting more and more annoyed each time I opened the book. I might try to get a little further on the audiobook while I'm running since I already invested in it, but it's time to move on.