Doctor Sleep - Stephen King (Book)

Doctor Sleep - Stephen King. Disclaimer: Stephen King is one of my all time favorite Author and whatever I may blabber here, it makes no difference as I will go ahead and read all his books in the time to come. Has that ever happened with you that one of your favorite writer has actually blundered big time and that too so big time that it becomes a total heart-break in the end? Doctor Sleep was one of those I guess rare occasion for me (I hope so). Again its all my fault that I somehow has to digest that sequels are usually never as good as the original first part. Same was the case here, I totally loved "The Shining" a few years ago. The book was a scare-fest, thrilling and horrifying too. A lot of things happened with me in the same week that I read the book and watched the movie back to back, like I actually saw a river of blood coming towards me in my office corridor which actually looked like King's corridor from Hotel Overlook. My speaker phone will automatically turn on and scare me big time with that deadly sounding US dial-tone. Elevators started making weird noises with taking some seconds break in between going to the floors I wanted to go and I refused to park my car in my office basement parking as it was too scary to take the vehicle out after my graveyard shift finished, I slept with entire house's lights on and so much more. On top of that when we were on the lookout for my company's new office I actually threw tantrums to my CEO for one particular office which he finally caved-in in the end as that office was numbered 217 :) and I gladly signed a 5 years lease for the same. I work in the same office now. After all that with "The Shining" you can imagine how excited I must be to pick up "Doctor Sleep" which was its sequel and the movie was right round the corner to get released. Oh! And before I forget to mention, let me tell you that Mr. King may not have liked or endorsed the movie made by legendary Stanley Kubrick (The Shining 1980) because he changed a lot of it and even in the ending too. But I loved the movie big time as it works super awesomely as a stand alone product. Although it still takes me a few days to fully recover from it, but I am working on it. So, lets come back to Doctor Sleep, which in the first place I wont recommend that you read in the first place. Its a thick book as it is the case with all King books but a totally no go. I just can't believe that he actually wrote it, neither the language, nor the story feels like a King story. I can bet my life that he got it ghost written by someone else for the heck of it and sold the movie rights for a few million dollars. Now the kid from The Shining has grown and so has his powers. Its three decades or more since the Overlook Hotel was burned to ground, all thanks to his Dad who finds himself surrounded by the ghosts from Overlooks past and we all know how it ends. Now that the kid has grown, he realizes he isn't the only one with the powers, there are more people like him. One such kid finds him and seeks his help, now there are bad people too with the similar or little more powers who have an agenda with these guys, like killing them to become more powerful in the most gut wrenching way (that was the only exciting thing in the whole novel of about 1000 pages). The way these two connect and why Danny is called Doctor Sleep, I suggest you Google it if not read the book as that will be spoiler to put here. Danny's reckless nomadic life, his past connections and characters all come haunting him but not the reader I would say. Too much Mr. King has taken from Shining still it doesn't work at all. After half the way into the book I realized that he was using too much from Shining itself to make Doctor Sleep shine but it all falls flat and only works towards the climax which itself is a let down of sorts. A lot of sidey events at times made me feel good and that I guess made me keep going in the hope of things getting any better. Have you read Shining and Doctor Sleep? If not, I highly recommend you read The Shining and not read Doctor Sleep but have if you have read Doctor Sleep, do let me know if that worked for you. Somehow I missed the movie in theater as the book stretched too long and in the meantime movie was out of theaters. A few of my close friends saw it and didn't like it that much anyways. I will be watching in next few weeks for sure as the curious soul that I am, I won't be easily able to give up.