Tania's Book Review

Under the Dome
by Stephen King

I can’t believe I’m going to say this about a book that’s 1,074 pages long, but “Under the Dome” was a very fast read! Okay, maybe it only felt like a fast read, because it was impossible to put down. And due to the hardcover version’s weight and thickness, my hands feel permanently cramped from holding the book open while spending many late nights reading during my four-day Memorial Day weekend.

Some of my favorite King books are his epic, 10-pound behemoths like “The Stand” and “The Talisman.” I think this novel ranks up there with those classics. It was sort of a post-September 11th version of “Lord of the Flies,” in which we get to see how the people of Chester’s Mill, Maine, behave when their town is completely covered by an invisible, impenetrable dome and all sense of law, order and morality breaks down.

In a way the story is more about the town and its people than about the strange dome that has trapped them. The cast of characters is long and colorful, full of seemingly ordinary people who could be your neighbor—the town newspaper editor, the local librarian, the grocer and the used car dealer. The main villain is more scary than one of King’s traditional, supernatural varieties, because there is a probably of version of him in every town in America—the power- and money-hungry businessman who portrays himself as a God-fearing Christian, but is really a dangerous psychopath who doesn’t think rules apply to him and will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

As is typical of most King novels, this one contains an element of the strange and paranormal (how else to explain an invisible dome that pops up out of nowhere and cannot be shattered by even our country’s most powerful missile?). But that element is still not as creepy as “witnessing” a town and its citizens unravel over the course of only one week.

The verdict: 4 stars out of 5