Ratings129
Average rating3.7
A relentless waking nightmare in which the master of horror and suspense guarantees you sure won't rest in peace.
You'll lose a lot of sleep.
Ralph does. At first he starts waking up earlier. And earlier. Then the hallucinations start - the colours, shapes and strange auras. Not to mention the bald doctors who always turn up at the scene of a death.
That's when Ralph begins to lose a lot more than sleep. When he begins to understand why his hitherto mild-mannered friend, Ed, is getting out of control - dangerously so. And why his hometown is about to become the new Armageddon.
An evil of unimaginable proportions has found a way in and Ralph has only one chance to beat it. The stakes are high - they always are when you're playing for human souls. With a Joker in the pack... a bald one with a rusty scalpel.
Reviews with the most likes.
It took me a bit longer than usual, but I got through it! I'm glad I stuck with it too, it ended up being quite the wild ride. Mr. King really sticks the landing on this one, and it had a lot of fun references to “It” and “The Dark Tower” for the fans.
All in all, a very good read and I definitely recommend it to Steven King fans.
One of my least favorite King novels so far. Unfortunately, I had to force myself to finish.
If I wasn't reading his books in chronological order, I probably would've DNF'd it 400 pages in.
There are many people for whom the book “Insomnia” will serve as a cure for the titular condition. It's an 800 page book that takes about 150 pages to start making sense – the first quarter of the book is all strange goings-on with no exposition.
Our hero, an old man with a dying wife, begins loosing sleep and (he thinks) hallucinating. He can see auras around people, fields of light that change according to their mood and health and terminate in a long “balloon-string,” their soul. And if that's not strange enough, he starts seeing three little bald men dressed as surgeons, who go around snipping people's strings.
It's all very psychedelic and intriguing, but I can see someone giving up on the book before it really gets rolling. Which would be a shame, because the plot kicks in around page 150 and it's a heck of a ride, all the more enjoyable if you don't know what's coming.
Suffice to say that this is the multiverse-hopping, cosmic guru King of The Stand and It, not the bare-bones King of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Running Man (I like ‘em both, if you were wondering). Insomnia is actually a better read than both The Stand and It, because it is more closely tied into the world as we know it. Most importantly, the characters are complex and believable, truly people worth knowing.
So if you've got the attention span and the physical strength to lift this book, definitely pick it up.
my library wouldn't let me renew it so I had to return it :(
Will be requesting another copy ASAP!
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3,523 booksWhen you think back on every book you've ever read, what are some of your favorites? These can be from any time of your life – books that resonated with you as a kid, ones that shaped your personal...