Book Review

Doctor Sleep: Sequel to The Shining – Stephen King

By on • ( 36 Comments )

The Shining, one of Stephen King’s most beloved and iconic novels, which was also adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick, follows the Torrance family trapped in a luxury hotel, rife with malevolent spirits and evil forces seeking to destroy a psychically gifted Danny Torrance, his mother, and alcoholic father. In Doctor Sleep, the sequel, Danny’s story continues and it’s a great story.
doctorsleep
When I learned that Stephen King was going to write a sequel to the Shining, I almost fell over from excitement, because well, I frigging love the Shining and always wondered if there would be a sequel. When Doctor Sleep came out in September of 2013 I read it immediately (I pre-ordered it 😊). I wasn’t disappointed.

Doctor Sleep spans decades and follows many characters as we go along for the ride with Dan Torrance, desperately trying to shed his past and redeem himself.

Have you ever seen a ghost? If you have, it probably wasn’t as horrifying as Danny Torrance’s experience in the Shining. I can’t imagine being 5 years old and experiencing such horrific events (REDRUM), of course being 5 and psychic and seeing dead people is another matter altogether and doesn’t exactly help the young Danny.

Mrs. Massey returned a week later. She was in the bathroom again, this time in the tub. Danny wasn’t surprised. A tub was where she had died, after all. This time he didn’t run.

This time he went inside and closed the door. She beckoned him forward, smiling. Danny came, also smiling. In the other room, he could hear the television. His mother was watching Three’s Company. “Hello, Mrs. Massey,” Danny said. “I brought you something.” At the last moment she understood and began to scream.

In Doctor Sleep, Danny (now Dan) Torrance is all grown-up. It begins however with a glimpse of Danny (in 1981) as a child still wheeling from his nightmare experience at the Overlook Hotel and trying to cope with the help of Dick Hallorann with the aftermath. I will leave to you to find out in what mental state and well being we first see the grown-up Dan.

Dan Torrance’s shine (supernatural ability) is suppressed for some time. But then he moves to a small town, Frazier, New Hampshire (Home of Teeny Town) and began working in a hospice.

A pretty cool thing began happening in this small town of Frazier with Danny. He begins receiving telepathic messages from a young girl, whose psychic abilities is even more powerful than his own. Her name is Abra Stone. This girl is a bad-ass, I want her psychic and telekinetic abilities. By now you know that Dan and Abra are telepaths and that you’re going to get some action in this book.

The evil beings faced here, call themselves The True Knot, don’t let that cute name fool you, they’re a band of psychic vampires, who feed off the “steam” of evaporating souls as they pass from the dying body, can you imagine that, something sucking the life out of you while you’re dying. These things, have been around for a long time, they are quasi-immortal, they also feed off our pain and suffering and take great pleasure watching our demise in one way or the other. The children are the ones that suffer the most by their hands.

The leader of this timeless group of “people” is called Rose the hat, cute nickname right. Bitch is also a telepath, with some shining, ya, I know right. The telepathic fights are awesome, I’ve never read the kind of epic battle that happened telepathically as they’re done in this book. So prepare for some seriously cool mental smackdowns. I really enjoyed those.

The True Know calls mortals “rubes”, how rude, they basically see us as food. And because they’ve been roaming the earth for so long and hiding in plain sight, going around in RVs pretending to be all innocence and light. They’ve amassed a lot of wealth, which they use to slither from state to state, or a different country, committing evil after evil deeds without being noticed.

If you are a fan of the Shining and Stephen King, you are going to love Doctor Sleep as well. It’s an epic war between good and evil, it’s frightening and fun (well fun for me, hehehe). It’s a horror fiction, supernatural, mystery, and a psychological thriller. It is an intriguing mystery you’ll want to read to the end.

If you’re a Stephen King fan and have read the Shining you are going to love this sequel, Doctor Sleep.

There is a movie in the works for this amazing novel, I’m looking forward to that.

Categories: Book Review

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , ,

36 replies »

  2. Oh wow, I had no idea there was a sequel to The Shining! I’ve heard of Doctor Sleep before — I’ve seen King fanatics in the bookstagramming community talking about — but I didn’t realize it had any connection to other King books.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. I started reading this a couple of years ago when it first came out, but then stopped mid-way cause it just got a bit dull. I really wasn’t interested in the whole Knot group, and wished that King would’ve just focused on Danny.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. Great review of a good book. I didn’t care for it as much as The Shining, which I have blogged about previously. But it was a really good story about what happened to Danny, though a little bit depressing when you read about how he actually starts cleaning up his life. That section or he spends the night with the mom and her poor little kid stayed with me for a long time.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Yes! There are parts that are depressing due to Danny’s, I’ll say problem here, don’t want to say too much. But I enjoyed the book quite a lot, especially getting to see Danny grow and evolve. All the psychic, paranormal and supernatural parts were bonuses for me 😊. Glad you liked my review on it, that means a lot to me 😊.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  8. Pingback: Deserves to be Rebloged! – Nerd's Herd

  9. I see your handle, I follow your link, and you start out with The Shining. By the time I read this, I had previously read a boatload of books. But, it was King’s writing in this one that woke me up. Instant Stephen fan, right here. And, then Dr. Sleep. And, all of the pen names and books in between. You rock, booksandstuff431.
    ghtrum at your service

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. Oh wooow, I didn’t know there is a sequel to The Shining! I absolutely love that book! thank you for sharing your opinion on Doctor Sleep, I’ll definitely give that one a read! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. This really was a great book review…I haven’t really read The Shining yet as I haven’t read many of Stephen King’s novels but I’ll start reading it real soon…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment