Under the Dome, Stephen King

3.5 out of 5

Under the Dome is a harsh book, to say the least. It wasn't the imagery that was startling so much as the increasingly downtrodden theme of the story itself. It shouldn't have surprised me like it did, it is, after all, an apocalyptic tale. There was just such little peace to be found.

My interest lies in the recreating of society after massive catastrophe. Under the Dome described a thousand pages of societal collapse without any justification at the end. It felt like a downward slide into devastation.

I'm not usually a big Stephen King fan; I grow impatient with his slow, deliberate, descriptive pacing at times, but how could I resist such a stylized story in my particular genre of interest?

It wasn't all gloom and doom. If you avoid the rape scenes completely (yuck), the characters had wonderful depth and many aspects of a modern-day community ostensibly cut off from society caught me off guard. Shocking to see how a small town could decay is such a short period of time: political manipulation, mass hysteria, environmental impacts all piled up on the expected questions of fuel, food and water resources.

~~~

I'm sure I say this after ever book, but certain portions spoke to me. You find what you look for.

There was a character struggling with chronic back pain, dependent on medication. In one paragraph she mused over the mind-body connection of addiction: 'I think that when it comes to drugs, the body and the mind are co-conspirators. If the brain wants drugs, the body helps out. It says, "Don't worry, don't feel guilty, it's okay, I really hurt."'

In the months since I've read Under the Dome, that idea has really resonated with me.