Growing up, my dad was always a huge Stephen King fan. I read a few of his books in middle school, though never quite warmed up to what I thought was his rambling tendency. However, after reading On Writing last month, I decided to give The Stand a try since he claims it is his fans' favorite book and when I asked my dad, he concurred with the opinion.

It truly is great and though there is a lot going on, I appreciated how character-driven the story was. America succumbs to a plague that kills off 99% of the population, which leads to supernatural dreams and a showdown between good and evil--but I was only interested in all of this PLOT because the characters felt like friends or scary enemies or someone I might be wary of (Frannie, Randall, Harold, respectively).

I was a little skeptical at first--King doesn't exactly have any strong female characters in Book I (for 1 Frannie there was a Julie Lawry, Rita, and other bit women who were mostly annoying). But by Book II I was enthralled by Frannie, curious about Nadine, hopeful about Abigail, and of course had made friends with Stu, Glen, Nick, and Tom. Larry took a while for me to warm to--but that's the great thing about realistically drawn characters, isn't it? No matter how black-and-white the main parable of good vs. evil might seem in the novel, it really isn't. Larry's the gray, and even Lloyd Henreid wonders how bad he really is.

What impressed me most was King's writing. The characters were wonderfully articulated and thought-out, but the description was also eloquent. I enjoyed his assessment of society during and post-plague with small vignettes from around the U.S., I liked that he used Glen Bateman's sociology professor character to explain the aftermath and what could happen...but most of all, I realized that maybe when I thought he was rambling earlier in my life, he was being particularly sophisticated. There were shades of Cormac McCarthy-esque writing here, and though he's not always so high-minded in his writing (part of his popularity), he doesn't get enough props for how good he truly is. Crichton could write a superiorly researched and enjoyable book about a vicious plague, but King actually makes you care about the characters more than the science.

By the end of the mega 1200-page book (read on my Kindle with ease!), I'd felt like I just started it. I was crying over the fates of certain characters, and I shut off my Kindle wondering where those surviving friends of mine might be now. Because King creates those characters that last.