Insomnia
by Stephen King
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.74 You Save: $3.25 (41%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Insomnia
Book Review: Don't read the Amazon review!
Summary: 5 Stars
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. It's a stone trip.
Book Review: One of the better ones I've read........
Summary: 4 Stars
When I first started reading this book I was kind of lost, therefore, I was a little frustrated but I kept at it. It ended up being one of the best King books I have read! The book starts off with main character Ralph Roberts losing his wife to cancer. He begins to experience insomnia, thinking it must be because of the grief he is experiencing from his wife's death. But then he begins to see these auras around people: some bright and beautiful others black and deadly looking. On one of his late night awakenings he notices two little bald doctors coming out from his neighbor's house across the street. This sparks some fear but mainly curiosity which gets him involved deeper than he had planned. It begins the great journey of jumping in between the real and supernatural world, telepathy and the great lengths that people will go to to save someone else. What I really liked about the book was that I caught two references to different books that King wrote. He mentions Gage Creed from 'Pet Semetary' and towards the end he mentions that things in the sewer in Derry have an unfortunate way of showing back up (referencing 'It'). It is always amazing to me how King manages to throw those little things in! At times the book gets a tad uninteresting but all in all it was a great book. The ending really made up for any monotonous sections. I almost cried at the end even! Ralph Roberts is a true hero! If you like King you will definitely like Insomnia.Book Review: A good read sometimes, a little slow at other times
Summary: 3 Stars
I tried reading this books a couple years ago and I admit I ended up putting it down because I just could not get into it. I decided to give Insomnia another chance, because it's one of the few King books I never got through. My feelings are more positive the second time around, I found the story more engrossing but I still had some issues.
The book is about Ralph Roberts a recently widowed senior who happens to reside in Derry, Maine (so right away you know somethings up). In Derry things are going strange, Ralph suffers from insomnia, a seemingly normal man becomes a wife beater and a crazy anti-abortion activist and the whole town is in an uproar because a famous womens rights activist is coming to town soon for a speech.
Although it takes a while to really get going, the parts about Ralph figuring out the weird things he sees after suffering from insomnia so long (i;e short bald doctors with scissors, colorful auras around people, long "balloon strings" out of the top of people's heads) are really interesting. The book for me is really about fate and how everything does happen for a reason. It also has tie ins to the Dark Tower series so any fans of those should probably read this book.
It wasn't my favorite King novel, but it has some interesting ideas so it's worth giving a try. Just make sure you don't want a fast read, because sometimes the plot drags a little.
Book Review: My vote for King's all time worst.
Summary: 1 Stars
Insomnia is a mixed bag of story ideas that never quite come together. You have an elderly man coping with his wife's death as well as a worsening case of insomnia that is causing him to see...things. An underdeveloped subplot on wife beating. Supposedly pro-life terrorists plotting to destroy a family planning clinic. And, finally, you have the powers of both The Random and The Purpose (New Agese translations being Random = Evil, Purpose = Good) battling to sway the outcome to their favor because, you see, someone in this big mess has serious, Big Picture connections to Roland and Company's quest to save The Dark Tower.Sounds good, doesn't it? Well it isn't. Insomnia is overlong (taking hundreds of pages to over development rather simple ideas) , prone to needless subplot digressions (in the midst of one important scene we stop for seemingly endless amounts biographical data on every item in Ralph's closet while he searches for binoculars), and, worst of all, it's treatment/development of the female characters borders on the misogynistic.
King constantly amazes me with how he can take dozens of characters, make each and every one them important to the plot, and crosslink seemingly random events in even the smallest of stories to create the illusion of epic meaning. But in Insomnia he fumbled the narrative horribly, creating an embarrassing failure to be avoided.
Book Review: promising novel becomes too long and silly
Summary: 2 Stars
When I picked up Insomnia from the library, I anticipated another fun read from Stephen King; I had just gotten through The Green Mile, which was excellent, and couldn't wait to get into another King work. (albeit Green Mile and Insomnia are two very different styles; The Green Mile is a departure from the usual King horror, Insomnia is more of the latter.) The first three hundred pages of the novel were fine, and included many of King's trademark characteristics; well developed characters, an entertaining and bizarre plot, and spotty elements of the gothic (darkness, black used as a color of evil, etc..) However, after the midway point or so, the plot becomes TOO ridiculous to pay attention to. During much of the second half of the novel, I found myself sometimes shaking my head or even laughing as the two main characters psychologically "took on" the two middle men from the "higher world" and shot sparks from their fingertips. Also, he could have done without the romance/sexual aspect...aren't these fifty year olds he's talking about?Ultimately, Insomnia is a step down from King's other works, mainly due to the latter part of the book. For a better horror read from King, try Carrie or Pet Semetary, or even watch Storm of the Century. Die-hard King fans would probably still enjoy Insomnia, but unless you are, leave it on the shelf.