If you are one of the many people who watched “The Dome” last summer than this is very important. The book is absolutely nothing like the series. There are people in the series that died in the first couple of chapters of the book. It’s confusing in the beginning if you are making the mistake of comparing them. Just remember they are 2 completely different stories. They just happen to have the same type of protagonist. And like most books that are brought to screen the book is phenomenally better.
“Under the Dome” shows that people can become the truest forms of themselves very rapidly when there is no threat of consequence. The dome provides a barrier between Chesters Mill and the “real” world. So they don’t believe that they have to abide by the same laws, or morals even, it seems. I think that it is probably very true and very sad that people can go from harmless nuisances to out and out killers when they think that no one is looking or even if they are, they can’t do anything about it. Then there are the mousy people who become heroes. Or the cowards that just give up or become sheep. (blind followers) Everybody seems to fit into a category.
It feels very much like you spend about 800 pages building up to a catastrophe. I was a little resentful and bored by this during those 800 pages. However after reading the last couple of hundred pages it adds more depth to the ending. I think. Maybe. Maybe the point was the build up. It was quite a build up though.
In the end this book feels like something that we should be forcing high school English students to be reading. It has as strong a message as any of the books that I had to read back then. It is a very obvious message too. It’s not hidden in prose or strange non-realistic characters. It is right to the point. Like a slap in the face. DON”T DO THIS! Unless of course you would enjoy living out a “dome” scenario. Of course you would also have to not be one of the people that when not checked just runs around killing people that they don’t like. Those people would probably love a “dome” scenario.
This one is kind of a must read. But have patients. See it to the end. And don’t read it slowly. Like a band-aid. Just read it to the end. It’s a more steam-rolling, car chase kind of a book that way. And if you are anything like me you will constantly being saying “Oh My God” because you just cannot believe that that just happened. Just keep in mind it is a Stephen King novel. 🙂
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