This morning, I just finished reading Stephen King’s new book, “Doctor Sleep”, which is the sequel to “The Shining”.

Here’s the plot/synopsis of the story:

The story takes place years after the horrible events at the Overlook hotel… Dan Torrance, the son of Jack and Wendy, is now a middle-aged man and is also a recovering alcoholic. Dan still has this power called, the Shining — which has the ability to read peoples minds telepathically — a power that he had ever since he was a young child. There is a tribe of people called, The True Knot… they look like ordinary people but they are not — they are evil and dangerous who kidnap young children who also have, the Shining. They don’t kidnap random people… they only kidnap young children with the Shining. Dan must save this young girl named, Abra (who he befriended with) from the True Knot because they planned on taking her. Abra also has this power called the Shining in which her and Dan communicate with. 

In this story, King returns to his roots… the horror genre as you can clearly see. That’s the genre that started his writing career. With books like: “Carrie”, “It”, “Salem’s Lot”, “Pet Sematary”, “Christine”, “Firestarter”, etc. Those were some of the scariest novels in his career. Horror is what he is most famous for. In this book, King tries his best to bring the “scare” back. King hasn’t written a horror novel in way over a decade and he decides to try to come back to it… see if he still has it. He wanted to try and give this book the same scare as he did with the first book, “The Shining”. I think he did just that. “Doctor Sleep” was still kind of scary in a way… King still got it!

“Doctor Sleep” was a nice throwback to “The Shining”. Of course, there was plenty of flashbacks from the first novel… it was pretty much a revisit.

I really liked the villains in this story… The True Knot. Making them look like normal people but they were psychotic much like Jack Torrance was in the first novel. There were a lot of similarities in the story from the first novel.

The pacing was good. King keeps you hooked through the story like he usually does. He has this way of keeping you reading and you can’t stop. It took me like 4 or 5 days to read this book. King has a lot of humor in this book as he always has funny stuff and jokes going through them. Most importantly, King tries his best to go back to his old writing style. When he was younger, his writing style was different than it is today. His writing style definitely changed over the years but he did a good job writing old-school with this one. This book felt like classic King — all the way.

Even though he tried his best to return to the genre he is known for… he should keep at it. He should keep writing horror. He shouldn’t leave horror behind ’cause that’s why his readers supported him to begin with. I’m sure his fans were wondering if he’s ever going back to horror; he finally listened to his “constant readers” (that’s what he calls his fans), and gave them what they wanted.

This was his best book in a long time. He never disappoints. Before you decide to read this book; however, you should read “The Shining” first ’cause if you don’t… you’ll be confused of the story. I think there’s going to be a third book ’cause this will end up being a trilogy. After I finished reading this book, I totally felt the story isn’t over yet. “Doctor Sleep” will probably get made into a movie too.

Kev