Paging Dr. Sleep!

In case you don't know, Dr. Sleep is Stephen King's new sequel to "The Shining"; his classic horror novel.  In this book, a group called True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They're trying to stay immortal by living off "the steam" that children with the shining produce when they are slowly and gruesomely murdered.  Danny, the boy from "The Shining" is grown up and is now in a New Hampshire town, working at a nursing home where his  shining power provides comfort to the dying. Aided by a special cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”
Enter the new "Shining" Abra Stone, with the brightest shining ever seen and the True Know want her.
How is it, you ask?  It's everything most of us who enjoyed The Shining would have hoped for.  I give it  4.5 skulls (since it's horror and it's Halloween month and all, I'll use skulls for horror books!)
                      
Now, I have to admit it is a great sequel, but if you don't know The Shining at all i suspect it would not be as impressive to you.  So many millions have read the Shining that I'm sure that won't be an issue.  But it isn't a classic like the Shining.  And the action ending along with the young heroine, makes it feel like Mr. King jumped on the ride being driven by "Hunger Games" and all it's wannabe's.  It is a little slow in the middle and some things are handled a little too easily.  All in all, I would have probably given it a 3.5 skulls, 3 for the story and the extra half because Mr. King writes so well, but as a sequel, it is very nice to pick up the characters and have the flashbacks.  And it is very satisfying too.
--M