Date Finished: 08/02/2013
My Rating: 4/5
I had never read any Stephen King before. To be honest, I don't do very well with horror ever since I had a sleepover at a friend's house at 8 (yes, EIGHT) years old and her dad got us Nightmare on Elm Street from the video shop. I couldn't sleep after that night without my mum in the room for about 6 weeks. She was furious. (I also developed a phobia for cottage cheese that night as I associated it with feeling terrified. In the last year I have managed to overcome that, but it is 25 years later!).
Anyway, as a result of this I have always hated the feeling of fear when watching and/or reading fiction, and I have been easily scared. I remember a particularly tense episode of Neighbours that I had to leave the room for. I have shied away from scary books, which pretty much took Stephen King off my reading list.
Until now! The Stand is a wonderful read, and I'm so glad that it is on this list. It starts with most of the population being wiped out by a sort of super-flu type bug and then goes on to look at new societies forming, how decisions are made, the fear of the future, whether babies will be immune etc etc etc.
After the population cull, the survivors all have dreams, some dreams about the Dark Man who is a pretty scary figure, generally chasing the dreamers and then making them face pretty nasty things. The other dreams are about an old lady called Mother Abagail. Oh, I should point out that both these people turn out to be actual people. Now, it gets a bit religous for my taste really, in that Mother Abagail believes she is a conduit for God (and the 'good' people tend to congregate around her). The Dark Man, or Walkin' Dude, is very devillish. Funnily enough the 'bad' people are attracted to him. It's not quite as clear-cut as all the good folk on one side, and all the bad on the other, but you get the drift.
The characters are well developed and engaging, and not a single one of them is safe, but I like that you can't be sure which characters are going to last until the end of the book. I even liked most of them, which is unusual for me!
It is a very long book, as I think is common for King, but I found it fast-paced and hard to put down. I'm not saying I'm a total King convert, but I wouldn't automatically disregard another of his books if they were on the shelf.
So, who should read this book? Well, if you like a good post-apocalyptic tale then pick it up. It's exciting, heart-wrenching, sweet and uncomfortable all at once. Oh... but everytime you hear someone sneeze you'll worry that it's really starting!
Next Book: Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
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