THE STAND (Stephen King) - January 23/17

Well, Jesus Christ. I mean there's long and then there's this. No book should be as long as six books, let alone a book with this simple of a story. King pads the book out to an ABSURD degree, offering up long, descriptive passages of aggressively simple things. (There was almost an entire chapter devoted to one character teaching another character to ride a motorcycle, for example.) By the time I started glazing over entire sections - especially the almost astonishingly tedious introduction to Mother Abigail - I was kind of like what the fuck is the point of reading this? I wasn't enjoying it at all and I was barely a third (!!!) of the way through. I remember trying and failing to get through this bloated trainwreck when I was a teenager and despite my best efforts, I just couldn't do it now that I'm an adult either. Fuck this book. Unfinished.