Stephen King

Doctor Sleep

A Novel

Rose Donovan

After decades as an itinerant alcoholic, middle-aged Dan Torrance uses his remnant powers to assist the dying before coming to the aid of a twelve-year-old girl being tortured by a tribe of murderous paranormals.

a subpar sequel to a surprisingly good book

Em Thomas

Justin Staack

Doctor Sleep: A Novel

4.5 STARS (I rounded up)
Was a Shining sequel necessary? Of course not. But as the great Oscar Wilde said, “All Art is quite useless.” Personally, I don’t think any form of media has to justify its existence. It simply exists, to be acclaimed or derided. Or forgotten. I really thought Doctor Sleep would fit into that last category. I picked it up because it had just been sitting on my shelf for two years, not going anywhere with a nice bookmark planted 160 pages in. Honestly, I don’t remember why I stopped reading. I think by then my eighth-grade Stephen King phase was losing steam. (You’ll get the Steam reference after you read). Anyway, I thought this would be a 3.5-4 star book, but by the end it moved me, and I’m not sure why. It did so in a couple of ways, too. I haven’t read a book in a while that made me feel the fullness of human emotion.... I forgot how good Stephen King is! I think it’s time for another phase.

Lara Engle

In a surprise twist, Danny Torrance didn't live happily ever after when his traumatic childhood story about his abusive alcoholic father and his family's stay in a more-than-haunted hotel ended. He grew up, struggled, learned to cope, then got pulled back in. While ghosties and supernatural terrors are scary, I always think the human side of Stephen King's stories is the real fodder for nightmares, or the reason for hope. Danny's traumas haunt him not because of his abilities, but because he has to find a way to connect with others and build a life, just like the rest of us.

Melissa M.

The premise of Dr. Sleep as a sequel to The Shining and following Danny Torrence all grown up is a storyline I never even thought of. King did a fantastic job bringing the two together and wrote yet another masterful novel with descriptive, in-depth characters and a captivating storyline, start to finish.

Briar's Reviews

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King was one of my most wanted novels for the past couple of years. I ended up buying it (full price, completely shocker - I'm a bargain hunter) and having it stay on my shelf. I stared at it for years. Literal years. I wanted to read it but I was scared I was going to be disappointed. The Shining was cool but didn't hit me like It did, so I figured Doctor Sleep might be like the Shining... but it's also a sequel. Sequels don't always do well.

Welp, it didn't hit me in the way I hoped. I really wanted to enjoy it, but some of it didn't do well for me. I loved all of Dan's parts (honestly, adult Dan's story is what I wanted to follow not the crazy chase of the Shining chasing weirdos) but didn't care for the rest. Dan felt like a real person - he had flaws, was struggling to get by after a rough childhood, and was despicable at times (enjoyable despicable though, like Loki). 

Abra was the stereotypical teenager for me. It was obvious she was written by an adult male and didn't have the excitement or life in her that a normal teenager does. She was too stereotypical with cultural references and felt like an adult trying to pretend to be a teenager. Dan's relationship with her also felt weird and forced, but that's just my opinion.

The True Knot bored me to tears and just annoyed me. I couldn't care less for their side of the story. I don't know why either! The bad guys are normally the fun ones to follow but they confused, annoyed and bored me. The mixture of these guys with Abra was very boring to me. I wanted to see lots of Dan - his job, his life, his struggles, more ghosts and the likes. I didn't want to see these guys because they felt like a completely different story. The two stories did not mash together well for me. 

I finished the book because I want to watch the movie. I love comparing books to their film adaptations so I stuck through it. Otherwise, I would have just skimmed through to Dan's parts, read his, and then went on about my day. This book made me so sad. I really wanted to like it! Stephen King's writing is magnificent, it's literally just the overall story plot that didn't get me. His writing kept me going.

Two out of five stars.

Kelly

This was possibly even better than The Shining - and certainly better than the movie. It was spooky and suspenseful and very well-developed.

3.5 stars

Not as good as the first book, but still a solid read.

JM Benedetto

An amazing book 2 for the shining. At least 2 really nice characters (Dan and Rose). I had to stop for 1 week after the taught moment in the middle of the book (I can not tell wich).

All AA references as awesome. I'm in love with the twelve steps, so do not take my word on it: try for yourself.

Rebecca Shaffer

I was hesitant to read this book after absolutely loving The Shining. While it didn’t top the experience of it’s predecessor, it was absolutely worth reading and might come close for some readers. It has connections to the plot of the first book and treats Danny’s childhood with the twisted reverence you would expect. However Dr. Sleep is a worthy novel in its own right. I loved the story of Dan as an adult and am so glad King chose to write this follow up. Read it.

lily

this book was absolutely incredible. i must admit i didn’t feel that way at first - i started this book a few years ago and didn’t get very far before i gave up on it; mostly because of the villains/bad guys of this particular king novel. 

if i’m being honest, i think the villains in this story were very corny, at least in execution. maybe it could have been done better. but their dialogue, their names, their terminology, i hated it all. The True Knot? Rose the Hat? Tommy the Truck? Baba the Russian? genuinely just so corny and made it hard for me to take them seriously, at least at first. 

however this was my only big issue with the book. i think the plot was an amazing extension of the events of The Shining, and and even more amazing extension of Dan Torrance’s character. i would goddamn die for Dan Torrance. 

my absolute favorite thing about this book: Dan and Abra’s relationship. it was absolutely the most heartwarming thing i have read in a long time, and i am not okay. they are so lovely and they make me so happy and dear lord i love them so much. 

what im about to say might be controversial: i think i liked this book even better than The Shining. not objectively of course; The Shining will stand the test of time infinitely more so than Doctor Sleep, and really it’s just a better horror story. it is. it’s horrific and sickening and iconic. but what Doctor Sleep had that The Shining did not (at least not to this extent), is something that will almost always make me fall in love with a book, no matter how jank the plot is; lovable characters and compelling character development. Dan and Abra, alone and together, fill my cold dead heart with love. 

9/10. although it’s not perfect by any means - i loved Doctor Sleep :-)

Tina Rawls

I thought it was an excellent continuation of the story. Read the book before seeing the movie, but checked out the movie story before watching so I was prepared for the discrepancies when I finally got to see it. It kept me from yelling at the movie for being wrong, wrong, wrong! Lol

Ashley Janssen

I listened to the audiobook the second time through and it was SO GOOD. Looking forward to the movie adaptation.

Scott Wilson

This was the best book I have read this year....

What an amazing novel and this book is so set up to continue the story even further into the future if Mr. King was so inclined.

The questions I am left with at the end are:
i) Will Abra subcome to addiction?
ii) Is the smile that she has a sign of an evil side that might come (?)
iii) What other relations have the shining but have suppressed it?

Reviews are so hard to write because you want to talk about details but you don't want to ruin the book for those that will follow...

All I can say is that I absolutely loved this book!! I will definitely be rereading it and probably within a year!

Whitney Pickle

This has to be my favorite Stephen King book that I have read. I never wanted to put it down!

Bianca

I LOVED it! I liked that it wasn't as horrific as The Shining. Just more plot twists and such.

Sian Wadey

I'm not sure why this book is only four stars and not five. As usual, King really shines with his characters. Dan Torrance, the same Dan Torrance whose father went a bit crazy at the Overlook Hotel in 'The Shining', is our hero in this novel. He is the aforementioned Doctor Sleep, using his shining to help the elderly residents of the care home he works in to pass away peacefully. We meet Dan at his worse (a violent alcoholic, stealing from penniless single mothers) and continue with him on his journey of recovery.
We also follow young Abra Stone (a brilliant name!) who has the shining from a young age. It's clear that she possesses brilliant powers and they are only getting stronger. 
Alongside Abra and Dan, we meet the True Knot, a band of people who only look younger and younger. To keep their youthful appearance they feed off of steam. Steam is obtained by the torture and prolonged pain of children with the shining. Now you can see where this is leading. 
As I said before, King creates characters with depth and emotion, characters you love to hate and characters you root for all the way. Alongside Dan and Abra there are several smaller characters that provide the humour and create lots of interesting situations.
My one criticism were the villains of this piece, really. The leader of the True Knot is known as Rose the Hat because she wears a top hat which manages to stay on her head at an unnatural angle. I didn't particularly dislike her, I just found her annoying, which is disappointing really, considering King's talent for writing viscous females (see Annie Wilkes in Misery). 
For me I can pick up one of King's books and know I am going to enjoy it. The tension is incredible at times, and his descriptions of the ghosts and ghouls are vivid and horrific. More than that, I enjoy the ride of his novels, I like getting to know the characters and unravelling the plot. Although a lot of content could be taken out without great loss of understanding. 
For Doctor Sleep I award four stars, for a great protagonist and a world created with complete detail. I would also say it not essential to have read 'The Shining', although there are references to it throughout.

Celeste Richardson

Revisiting a famed story over 35 years after its original publication has to be terrifying for any author, even the King of Horror. However, King handled this with great aplomb and, though I was skeptical in the beginning, I feel that he did right by Dan Torrence. In his author’s note King said that this story spawned from two questions: “Whatever happened to that kid from The Shining?” and “What would have happened to Danny’s troubled father if he had found Alcoholics Anonymous instead of trying to get by with what people in AA called “white-knuckle sobriety”?” Through Doctor Sleep, we get answers to both of these questions, but with Danny himself standing in for Jack Torrence in the alcohol department.
“There are other worlds than these.”
Even after escaping the Overlook Hotel, Danny is haunted by both his past and the beings that plagued his stay at the Overlook. As an adult, Danny still has the Shining but adulthood and alcoholism have weakened it considerably. When he finally finds a place that feels enough like home to draw him away from his marauding, people are put in Danny’s path who help him sober up and stay that way. He manages to crawl out of the bottle and build himself a pretty good life, working at a hospice and helping scared people ease their way out of this life and into the next. When a child in the area begins reaching out to him telepathically, he lends out his own invisible friend from childhood. But when this Shining girl finds herself hunted by RV-driving vampires who feed on the death screams of children like her, Danny must not only come to her aid but face a past he had hoped was long buried.
“The Shining. It was a good name, a comforting name, because she had always thought of it as a dark thing.”
Both the secondary protagonist (a girl named Abra with a more massive dose of the Shining than anyone Danny has ever met) and the main antagonist (a beautiful vampiric woman named Rose the Hat, for the top hat that she always wears) are fascinating characters who King imbued with epic portions of personality. Dynamically crafted characters are one of King’s specialties, in my opinion, though their development throughout their stories isn’t on par with authors like Joe Abercrombie and Robert Jackson Bennett, for instance. Side note: I always thought this cover was weird, but now that I understand it I adore it.
“There came a time when you realized that moving on was pointless. That you took yourself with you wherever you went.”
King is also a master craftsman of unique plots, or putting unique spins on older ideas. In both cases, the man knows how to write a captivating story, even if he doesn’t always seem to know how to end them. I don’t have as much of an issue with his endings as some of his fans, but I’m also not the pickiest of readers. I did think that the climactic scene of this book was a bit too cut-and-dry, and that it wrapped up too neatly and too soon. 
“I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.”
One of my favorite elements of King novels is the hunt for references to his other works. This book didn’t disappoint in that regard. Early in the story, King even referenced a villain crafted by his son Joe Hill in the book NOS4A2, which I thought was a very fun addition. It’s the inclusion of little references like these, combined with unique plots and interesting characters, that keep me reading King’s work. I can’t believe I was ever not a fan.
“Learning itself is a present, you know. The best one anybody can give or get.”
Doctor Sleep wasn’t perfect, but it was far from disappointing. I was completely enthralled from the first page to the last. As with his other works, reading this book just made me want to immediately read more novels from him, which is a wonderful side effect for a reading experience to have. I’m sure I’ll be looking askance at any RV I see for quite some time. If you visited the Overlook Hotel in the past and enjoyed your stay, I strongly suggest you pick up this book. Just watch out for beautiful women in raggedy top hats.

You can find this review and more at Novel Notions.

Cams Campbell

I got this as a Christmas present and tucked into over the holidays. It brought back to me instantly why I've read so many Stephen King novels. I love his writing style and it gives me great pleasure to read such a master of his craft. As with other King novels, this one grabbed a hold of my attention and wouldn't let me go until I was done. No TV, no Facebook, just Doctor Sleep. And d'you know what? It was helluva enjoyable. 

So, why only three stars? I felt let down slightly by the end section. I can't really put my finger on why and I don't want to add spoilers to my review. It's also, as I've found with a lot of Stephen King novels, quite forgettable. Thrilling, attention-grabbing and forgettable. It's a strange combo.

I did love the AA and recovery that permeated Dan Torrance's story. Let's just say I can relate. 

And the reference to the Dark Tower made me laugh out loud with joy. I think this is the first of his novels I've read since finishing that series. His reference in the afterword was a peach, too. 

I've just added The Shining to my list for the year. Of course I've seen the movie, but never read the book, and that's rather unlike me.

You get a quick paragraph summary of the end of The Shining as well as getting a look at how Danny is coping since his harrowing experience at the Overlook. Even three years later he is plauged by the sinister ghosts of the Overlook. Surprisingly early on you get get meet the True Knot whom will serve as our group of baddies for this story. They are a sort of energy vampire that can take from certain gifted people.

We meet up with Dan as an adult and frankly he is going through some serious rough times. A complete contrast to when he was a kid. I can't help but think that The Overlook and his shining are responsible for how he has turned out. 

He finds himself in a new location, working to get himself sober and on a better path, which he does end up doing.

We also meet Abra, a very talented little girl who has such a huge role in this book. Her powers and her shine rivaling that of Dan's even from a very very young age, mere months old at one point.

The two meet and quickly become friends, Abra happy to find someone else who shines and sort of becomes a pupil for Danny. Abra is soon captured by the True Knot and it is up to Dan to help save her.

We get a nice amount of tension and anticipation as this story starts its climb toward its climactic ending.

This was a good book. Very emotional and plenty going on to keep a reader's attention captured. I find this to be a good sequel to The Shining and in a way still completely its own story.

Sasha Mann

You get a quick paragraph summary of the end of The Shining as well as getting a look at how Danny is coping since his harrowing experience at the Overlook. Even three years later he is plauged by the sinister ghosts of the Overlook. Surprisingly early on you get get meet the True Knot whom will serve as our group of baddies for this story. They are a sort of energy vampire that can take from certain gifted people.
We meet up with Dan as an adult and frankly he is going through some serious rough times. A complete contrast to when he was a kid. I can't help but think that The Overlook and his shining are responsible for how he has turned out. 
He finds himself in a new location, working to get himself sober and on a better path, which he does end up doing.
We also meet Abra, a very talented little girl who has such a huge role in this book. Her powers and her shine rivaling that of Dan's even from a very very young age, mere months old at one point.
The two meet and quickly become friends, Abra happy to find someone else who shines and sort of becomes a pupil for Danny. Abra is soon captured by the True Knot and it is up to Dan to help save her.
We get a nice amount of tension and anticipation as this story starts its climb toward its climactic ending.
This was a good book. Very emotional and plenty going on to keep a reader's attention captured. I find this to be a good sequel to The Shining and in a way still completely its own story.


Nicole Sargent-Carberry

Didn’t think I’d like this, but I LOVED this

I mean it was Stephen King....
Having Ewan McGregor in the film as Dan made it better

Tania Santos Ferro

De verdad que King no me ha decepcionado. Este libro es una magnífica muestra de que no todas las secuelas son malas. Lo acabo de terminar y aún lo tengo a un lado, como si esperara que algo más fuera a saltar de entre sus páginas. 
Muy bueno. Escribí una reseña SIN SPOILER en mi blog, por si gustan leerla:

http://wp.me/p2F0qU-vJ

Caroline Lewicki

I didn't love or hate this book. I'm troubled because what I loved (and have always loved) about The Shining is the allure of the Overlook Hotel. Is it haunted? Was Jack Torrance driven to madness? Was it cabin fever? Doctor Sleep explains away all of the mystery of The Shining.

Aside from that, I do think it's an interesting book/concept. I enjoyed seeing Danny Torrance as an adult, taking on a similar role that Dick Hallorann did for him as a child.

Doctor Sleep

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