My Drunk College Roommate Zach Reviews "Doctor Sleep" by Stephen King

From: [email protected] Subject: Steven Kin'gs New Book

Kaln,... Kalan, Hay, man. Hru? Dude. So I just picked up this new book by Steven King because, you know. I got that bar exam next week. What am I gonna do? Study? am I right? So, I got this book, this doctor sleep. It's nomber 1 on the NY Times bestseller lists right now and it's scary so I thought? why not? And dude, it was pretty good. And I was thinkin about like, when we would get drunk and watch horror movies in college and it remanded me somuch of just chillin' with beer and other steven king stuff... like Trucks, that I thought, "Hey, Zach. Dude. You should totally email Kalan about this book and tell him about it an stuff because it's pretty scary." I went to Coliseum and got a 6 pack of tallboys and some wild Turkey and on the way, on my phone, dude, I was reading that King had been thinking about doing a sequel to the shining for a long time because, you know, he wanted to know what had happened to Danny Torrance. Redrum? You know with the finger?

The book starts up with Danny and his mom settling in Florida after the ending of the Shining with the cook guy, Hallorann, nearby. I thought he died with, you know, an axe to his belly. That's how I kind of feel when I drink Busch Light. But in the book he apparently survives and like trains Danny boy to use his shining. At the begginning Dandy is, like, haunted by the things that happened at the Overlook. He sees that drowned fat lady, Ms. Massey in his dreams and stuff and things are no bueno. But Dick Hallorann teaches him to bottle up his emotions, or I guess they're chests, so he teaches him to chest up his nightmares or something like that to where they can't hurt him. Lockboxes in the mind and stuff. You think that having an alkie, violent dad would, you know, make him freeze up when it came to drinkin. But no, Dan turns into a totall lush man. A really bad drunk bro. Not like us, though, you know, we're good. Dan gets into fights and brawls and does coke and stuff. Theres this super important, i guess, bit wear he goes home drunk with this chick and when he wakes up theres a bunch of coke on the table that a toddler thinks is candy. so he like move s the coke. but then he steals all her money for booze and sees in the future, with his shining, that she and the kid are gonna die. Then he leaves anyway. See, we'd never do anything like that, so no drinking problems here! On the other side of the world, there's this group of people who were kind of like vampires, except for they drank Shining. King says they "don't sleep in coffins during the day or turn into bats by moonlight, and I doubt if crosses and garlic bother them, but they're parasites, and they're certainly not human." But they're, like, bad bad people and they kill kids and stuff. They're camping at the Kozy Kampground "outside Lexington" he says. Do you know where that is? If I do I don't remember I don't think so though.... There's also this baby/kid (dude I think they skip a lot of years in between a couple chapters and stuff) named Abra who has a lot of shining. Like a whole, whole lot. She does some stuff that freaks out her parents, some real psychic sh*t, with like crazy spoons. She reaches out with her mind bullets to Dan and they become like physic buddies. Oh yeah, so Dan moves to New Hampshire and joins AA and sobers up and stuff. He gets this job at a Hotspice... er... Hospice where he becomes this Charon like dude. He helps all this old people cross over with a cat named Azrael. Well the cat predicts and he does all the rest. Theyre like Turner and Hooch except with a cat. And with dead people. And at a hospital.

The whole story pretty starts though, once this Abra chick sees these creppy vampir dudes murdering this kid with some shining who plays baseball. His baseball coaches name is Micah Johnson. I thought he played football though? Anyway. It's gross dude. They're torturing this poor kid, wringing every bit of shining out of him like he's some dishrag or somethin. but Abra sends out a shining massage or something and the leader chick, Rose the Hut... Hat sorry dude, she notices Abra. And she sees that Abra has shining like whoa. She and the rest of the group who call themselves the True Knot, decide they could feel for years on Abra and they resolve to find her and keep her alive draining her slowly. Like a camelback... or a squirrels nut collection. That like, sets the tables so to speak. The Knotties are gunnin' for some abracadabra and she gets Danny dan to help protect her. It's a good book, scary man. There are parts where demons are talking to them and going for them in their brains and junk. There are ghosts of people flying all around and scarin' dudes. It turns out that Abra is super strong in the force. or the shining. The book is like half the shining, half star wars, and half nightmare of elm street. There's this kinda epic mind battle half way through where Rose tries to find out where Abra is hiding. But threw the whol e book Abra is way smarter than they know. I feel like that could be me man, like way smarter than people would think if they'd have a brain battle with me, but that's impossible so you know? I wish they did... You can tell from the book that this King dude is super opinioned. REading this book makes me feel guilty about being so drunk reading it and like writing this to you. Like alcohol must have messed with his life a bit man, because no one in this book can have just one... no self control. He also mentions how much he hates Google Earth. I looked all over for this 'whirl 360" he was taling about, but apparently its not a real thing, so he's just hateful man. Anyway, sorry, I'm sory of ramplbing. After an aborted attempt by the kNots to capture Abra, she and Dan and her parents and doctor and a funny old dude who drives a train, come up with this like master plan to offa the shinepires. And where else would they go? but back to where the Ovelrook Htoel had bean. Right? I mean it had to end there? hrigh? Connecting there minds together, thay... and this is the SUPER SHOCKING PAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEJIJAKKKKKKKTGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGNASDTTTTTTTTTT Oh, my god my head. Kalan, I think I passed out on the keyboard. What the hell was I doing? Was I writing to you about that book I read last night? I don't even remember what happened at the end. I'm so sorry man. I hope you didn't want to know the ending because I've completely forgotten. I remember breaking into the Wild Turkey and something about Turner and Hooch. Then there were vampires and AA meetings and other junk like that. But wow. I feel awful. I think I'm going to pop a few ibuprofen and sleep a bit before I have to go study for the bar. It was great catching up with you, man, and I hope all is going well down there in Austin. Oh yeah! I suppose you want to know whether you should read the book or not. I would say yes. Like a lot of Stephen King's books, the action takes a while to begin, but once it does it's entertaining and page turning. The characters end up being people you care about--at least enough to finish the book--even if they don't start out that way. I can't say I was ever scared, or that I cried, or that I wept openly when Dan found out what happen to the coke-kid and his mom(Shut up, I didn't. You have no proof! It haunts him too!), but I was definitely invested in it. Overall, a pretty entertaining read. Drunk Roomie's Score: B+

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PS. Man, I feel like I just ate Meat Cthulhu and drank an 80 pack of that Rheinlander sh*t we used to get at Liquor Barn. Oh, also, I finally got on twitter so that we can tweet or, whatever. I'm @DrunkRoomieZach. Cheers Bud, and I'll catch you on the flipside!