Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

The Stand by Stephen King

18 reviews

readingoverbreathing's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I think it's official — Stephen King is now one of my all-time favorite writers. I used to think his work, just due to genre, wasn't for me, but, boy, was I wrong. He is just such a brilliant writer, so imaginative, so good at pacing and suspense and at creating characters you find yourself desperately attached to. It is so rare now that I find myself as anxious for a cast of characters and their fate as I found myself here.

I have to say that having now lived through a global pandemic, this book hit home all the harder, even made it seem like we all got off pretty easy. Pre-2020, I might have found this a lot less believable and emotionally engrossing than I did. The first part especially really brings you back to March 2020, when everything descended into chaos almost overnight and suddenly all the problems you had before paled in comparison to the fear and uncertainty. That chapter where King traces the spread of the superflu from the one state trooper — wasn't that all what we spent months trying to reconstruct in real life?

I recognize that the classic moral battle between good and evil that King imposes here may not be for everyone, but I found it utterly fascinating, especially against the backdrop of 20th-century America. That being said, I will add that I was rather frustrated that we never hear much about how the superflu affects the rest of the world. I get that there was no way for the characters to really find out and that this is already 1200 pages long, but I found that Americentrism as equally frustrating as I did thematically fascinating.

Okay, I know there are those out there sick of hearing me talk about Ayn Rand, but there was a lot here that honestly reminded me of Atlas Shrugged. There's that same wide, continental, truly American reach, coast to damn coast, the sanctuary in the mountains, the moral crisis at hand. Fran and Stu, I'd argue, even could have been Dagny and Rearden in their previous lives. But thankfully, here King lays off the capitalist crusade (in fact, even seems to argue against).

Let's go back to the characters, though. Stu, Fran, Larry, Glen, Nick, Tom — I loved them all so much, again in a way that's rare for me these days. I also loved how, once we got to the Free Zone, King incorporates such an array of equally vivid side characters and townspeople. This attention to character and detail, science fiction though it may be, really lent the story a sense of reality. The variety of perspectives offered in the early part, where we get a sense of everyone's pre-flu life and early experiences and loss, again reminded me of March 2020. Like the Free Zoners, we all had our own tales of plans that were cancelled and knew exactly what we were doing when we realized just how serious the virus had become.

1200 pages afford a lot of detail, but King did not waste any of it. You get every angle, every ounce of desperation, every inner struggle. Few could take on a book of this magnitude and make it work, but King sure does. It's a commitment and it can get gross, but to me, it was so worth it. Talk about a great American novel.

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n0e11e0000's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25


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thebookishrose's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Stand is one of those books that sinks it's teeth in deep and takes hold. The characters are super interesting and even the bad guys are often lovable. It's a book that makes you think. 

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urnee's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5


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calypso_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Definitely in my Top 5 for favorite books. It’s got everything you could want from a book: mystery, romance, adventure, magic. Well worth the 1k+ pages

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kirtreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I do not see how people say that this is the best King novel that there is. I read the uncut version as is recommended and I can tell you that his publishers were correct for making him cut as much as they did. 

This book starts off so strong. I was gripped from the beginning and couldn't put it down. I wanted to know what happened to each of the characters. Everyone was interesting and dynamic. The book moves along at a nice pace until it doesn't. It comes to a screeching halt
the second that they find mother Abigail and start the Safe Zone in Colorado.
The character development stops, the plot does a hard pivot into something that is weirdly political and horrible to sit through. The lull in the middle is so hard to get through. It was just an absolute slog that added nothing to the story. 

Then, the story picks up again finally and there is movement again towards some kind of resolution.
After Nick's death
it feels like things are finally moving but it really doesn't kick off again. The whole back half of the book is a drag. It never got moving for me again. 

There also are some frustratingly huge issues with the ending.
If the end of the Vegas group was just Trash blowing them up with an atomic bomb, which would have happened anyways, why send the four to Vegas? I know that it was explained as "God requiring a sacrifice" but that just felt like such a stupid cop out to what could have been a really cool final battle. For a book titled "The Stand" there is no actual stand against evil. It is in fact the opposite. Evil consumes itself and there was no reason for Good to be involved in any way. If people had just ignored the Vegas group, the ending would have been the same with a lot less character death.
It was just incredibly frustrating to put in so much time to get such a poorly written and plotted ending. 

This book really highlights the best and worst of King. 
  • Pro: Characters are amazing and really fleshed out. You end up feeling connected to each of them and rooting for them 
  • Pro: It has a great premise and he has great world building at the beginning of the novel 
  • Con: The ending blows and falls flat 
  • Con: It is so long and needed some heavy editing. I know that people say that it "fleshes out the world" but you know what I didn't need?
    Chapters of council meetings that had literally no hold on the plot.

If you are a die hard King fan and you want to complete all his works, then this book provides some really great highs and I recommend it for the great characters. 

If you are not a huge King fan and are not sure if you are willing to put in the work, just stay away. The pay off is not worth it. 

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gagereadsstuff's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5


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minttruffle's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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tiffcutshall's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

By far my favorite King novel. This is the second time I’ve read this, the first being back ‘08. It was even better the second time and I caught things I either missed or glossed over the first. 

I love the way King weaves multiple themes and ideals together that make not just an interesting story but one that makes the reader actually think.

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kessejeen's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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