I rarely don't finish books, but I just can't finish this one. And it's not even that I hate it? It's not that bad. It's just one of those books that I can't physically finish because I'm annoyed at it. 

I'm not a huge King fan, although I do enjoy his books now and then, and this one looked intriguing, especially because it's about a pandemic! The premise is so interesting and unique, and in another world could be executed perfectly. 

1: LONG. I'm not anti-long books. But only when they have to be! This did not have to be this long. I got about 300 pages into the book and it feels like nothing's happened. About a day has passed. Again, long books with a short timeline aren't inherently bad, but this was painful. I'm bored and I'd rather just read an online summary.

2: This is one of those books that has a character list at the beginning because there are just so many f-ing characters no normal person could keep track of them. This is also not inherently bad. But the plot just kept getting more confusing and twisted and still nothing had happened? 

3: I also don't know if it's fantasy or magical realism or realistic fiction and one of the characters is just on drugs the whole time? I assume if I finished it I would get the theme better, but I genuinely don't understand the theme halfway through the book. 

4: It also has the almost-gratuitous misogynist male characters that King apparently loves to write. It throws me completely off and doesn't seem relevant at all to the plotline. Obviously men being sexist is completely realistic, but the way in which he writes those characters always makes me uncomfortable.

It is very possible my memory problems and ADHD are to blame for some of these problems, I will admit. This is just my personal honest review.

I will give this book a point for having lesbian representation that (at least in the first half) is genuinely well-written and sweet. I mean, one of them's basically comatose but their relationship is sweet?