Sara Withadi

One thing I always look forward to with a Stephen King novel is getting to leave this stressful, annoying, politics-obsessed world and enter one of his worlds where the crazy things are thought-provoking and entertaining. I had been anxiously awaiting the release of this book for months. But this book was no escape. It was like opening your door and finding two people there ready to talk to you about the afterlife - the heaven King preaches is his political ideology. Worse - King took sweet, awkward, brave Holly and turned her into a woman who cries over political elections!? I'm even vaccinated...with a booster...and it was just overwhelmingly preachy! Poor Holly's mom dies BECAUSE "she wouldn't wear a mask!" He even stooped so low as to name-call anyone who didn't like masks with the taunt, "Trumper see, Trumper do!" I don't know what the heck's happened to him! I'm a registered independent and despise both extremes. In the past, King has always been balanced with his stories and I've admired him for that. Good guys weren't always people in King's preferred political camp. Bad guys weren't always the other party. He was so balanced before and it was so freeing to read a good story to just get away from all the petty political squabble. But the man who created the hero-character of Mother Abagail in The Stand is gone.