After a year of reading, I have finally completed this book. Despite taking so long to finish, it was an enjoyable book. The Stand by Stephen King is the longest book I’ve ever read so far, being 1,153 pages; one of the main reasons I chose to read this book in the first place.
The Stand is about darkness vs light. A disease wipes out most of the population around the world, but some are left standing. As people start coming together, these groups begin to split in two.
There are lots of prophetic dreams that lead you to one side or the other depending on who you are. One side is Mother Abigail, a sweet 103-year-old black woman who has complete faith in God. The other side is Randall Flag, a dark person who just wants to bring violence to the world with weird powers – definitely a suspected devil reincarnated situation.
Though the book got long at times, and let me tell you, Stephen King sure loves to go into depths about things I really don’t care about. The hardest hurdle to get through was the beginning. I understand the set-up, and it’s important to fully acknowledge how this whole thing started and it’s 100% plausible that it could happen in real life.
The only thing that kept me going through this long book was a love of one character in particular that motivated me to keep reading. That person was Nick, a mute and deaf boy who doesn’t have a lot going on for him at the start of the book, but really develops as a character.
By the end of the book, there were so many characters who I just loved, Frannie, Stu Redman, The Judge, Larry Underwood, and many more. Then there were some characters that I just couldn’t bear to read through. Like The Trashcan Man— like what even is his name? Stephen King really couldn’t come up with another? Anyway, he is a pyrophilia and an arsonist. (You can assume what side he is most drawn to).
Old Mother Abigail was hard to get through as well. I’m sorry but this really old lady was really boring to read about, though everyone else was pretty obsessed with her. There were so many character developments and honestly a lot of different people. It was hard to keep up with them all. But with the main gaggle of characters, some were hard to tell whether they were gonna be good or bad.
There were so many aspects to this book that I loved other than the characters. They go in-depth about the downfall of society and how the government tried to handle and secure the situation. We see the freedom of speech and press being shut down by the government and people standing up against the government. There are side characters never heard of again that still touch your heart in one little chapter.
They go in-depth about the buildings of new societies and how that would even work. Would babies even be immune to the virus? Is the community ready for full-blown democracy? Glenn the Sociology professor really helped out with all these philosophical discussions.
It also touched upon how it wasn’t just the disease that killed a lot of people, but rather the lack of help and being scared. It was hard to find a doctor or anyone with a medical background, so a simple break to the leg could be the death of someone. Something that is such an easy fix becomes deadly instead.
These were the parts of the books that definitely stuck with me. They made you think about what’s to come along with all these other characters. How do you handle being the one responsible for rebuilding society? Would you be able to handle the end of the world where there are no rules? It’s scary. Some characters in the book just don’t have the guts to live through it.
The whole story did have a religious motif. The villain of the story had to be the devil. It did kinda weird me out that this book went so deep into the research of how people would handle the end of the world and then had this unrealistic portion with prophetic dreams of corn fields and Randall Flag coming for you. But at the same time, it kept you a little hooked. Like what does this mean? It changed from weird to actually pretty intriguing. Those dreams told you a lot about who this character was and added a lot to the mythical side of the sorry.
The ending was very bittersweet, very much like how a movie would end. But I understand why it ended the way it did. There was really no other way. It did make me teary-eyed and sad. Especially to say goodbye to so many characters I loved; it was an emotional journey.
Overall I 100% recommend this story to those who have the stamina to read such a long book. By the end, I was surprised at how much I really enjoyed it.
