Insomnia | Stephen King

Title: Insomnia
Author: Stephen King


Insomnia tells the story of an elderly man, Ralph, who lives in the town of Derry, Maine (yes, the Derry, Maine, of IT). After the death of his wife, he begins to have issues with, you guessed it, insomnia. As time goes by, it gets worse and worse, and he starts to notice that he is able to see a world of "auras." He eventually discovers that his friend Lois is having the same problems and is seeing the same things he is seeing.

The world of auras is absolutely bonkers, in the best way possible. I love King's descriptions of what is going on there and the abilities that Ralph and Lois discover they have. The character development is stellar, the basic plot is good, the elderly romance story is absolutely adorable, but it's the length of the book that gets me. This is an issue that I have with many of King's novels. I have no problem with a book being long if it needs to be long, but there are just way too many extraneous details that are not needed, and this book could be far shorter.

I really, really enjoyed the Dark Tower tie-ins, and overall I mostly enjoyed this book. There are just large chunks of it that are very slow and boring.

Three out of five stars.

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QUOTES:
"It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in a while exhilarating."

"They lived in fearful perplexity and passed it off as imagination."

"Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else."

"Perhaps real beauty was something unrecognized by the conscious self, a work that was always in progress, a thing of being rather than a thing of seeing."

"It's time to quit f***ing around, don't you know that? When you start to see colored footprints on the sidewalk, it's time to quit f***ing around and go to the doctor."

"Of all the things that make up our Short-Time lives, sleep is surely the best."

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READING PROGRESS:
If You Tell by Gregg Olsen: 90%
I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo: 64%
No Tomorrow by Luke Jennings: 32%
Rose Madder by Stephen King: NOW STARTING

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