The Worst Ending Ever?

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hey, I'm Nick of Books Are Sick here with another desk video at my desk. And I read a book that I absolutely loved and can't wait to talk about with you all. It is a book that I went into with pretty low expectations, even though it is by one of my favorite authors, Stephen King. I ended up loving this book. I think I would even consider it in my top 10 favorite Stephen King books ever. I don't know where it would land in there, but I'm pretty sure it's in there. I loved it that much. So, I have my iced coffee here from Rooney. I've made my notes. I'm ready to talk about this book. So, let's get into it. The book that I am talking about is Under the Dome. Under the Dome is probably a book you've heard of, even if you're not a reader. They made a TV show based off of it. It and it was just a really big popular book when it came out. It only came out in 2009, which is, I think, still considered one of Stephen King's newer releases. And it was just really popular for a lot of different reasons.

[00:00:52]A lot of people loved it. They loved the characters, the pacing, uh, and people had a lot to say about the ending specifically. The ending is very polarizing, but let's get into a few details of this book. Again, it came out in November of 2009, but Stephen King actually had the idea for this book way back in the 70s. He had I think he had the idea for this book before Carrie was even released. But the problem is he there were a few things he couldn't figure out. Namely, the weather patterns that would exist inside of the dome. He couldn't get answers on what the weather would do when you're trapped inside of this massive dome. And because I guess Stephen King is just the type of author that needs answers for everything, he kind of scrapped it. I think he wrote about 75 pages and then he realized the scope of this book is just too massive and he put it away and just continued thinking about it all the way up until 2006, which is I when I think he began writing it again and thought I guess said to himself, I'm just going to make this happen. And we ended up with Under the Dome releasing in 2009. And he obviously I would say there when it comes to the ending I think he just made a bold decision. I think he he was just like I'm just going to do what I want to do here. I don't care what people think about it. This is what I want and I'm going to do it. I'm going to talk about the ending later. Non-spoilery unfort I wish I could be spoilery. This isn't going to be a spoiler-filled review. But the ending is interesting. Another thing to note about this book is there are a ton of characters in here. There's a naming chart at the beginning of this book you can reference if you need to because we're following a lot of different story lines with a lot of different characters. And another interesting thing about this book, and this is a mild spoiler, is this entire 1,60 page book takes place within the span of a week. So this whole story is one week trapped under this dome. With that, let me tell you a little bit about the story of Under the Dome. It's relatively simple. We are in this town of Chester Mill and on this random fall day, a massive dome shoots down out of nowhere and traps the entire town inside. No one knows where this dome came from. No one knows what this dome is made of. And no one can figure out how to get out of this dome or into the dome. No one knows what is going on other than there's now this massive invisible force that has trapped this town inside. And it is a pretty violent explosive entry into this book. We've got a plane crashing into the dome.

[00:03:18]We've got a woodchuck that just gets cut in half. Um car crashes cuz again, you can't see this thing. It just it's there out of nowhere, but you can't see it.

[00:03:27]And it takes a little bit of realization to understand, wow, we're stuck in here now. And a lot of what this book is about is really how people behave when they are cut off from society. When they are cut off from everything that they're used to having and they now have to work together or not to stay alive, to figure this out and to try and make something happen. And what's interesting is we have some pre-existing conflict in this town before the dome even shows up. One of our main characters and Barbie has gotten into an altercation with Junior, who is the son of the main villain uh in this story. And Barbie is planning on leaving town, but before he can do so, the dome shows up and he is now stuck in there. We've got Big Jim, who is the father to Junior. Big Jim is our main villain here, and he is the type of person that is going to now use this dome to his advantage to try and gain total power over the dome. Now, a few things that I loved about this book.

[00:04:18]Firstly, the pacing. The pacing of this book is fantastic. Again, it is a very long book. It's over a,000 pages. It's one of the longest books he's ever released. But you will never be bored.

[00:04:28]You will never not find it exciting.

[00:04:31]Trust me, it is really the pacing of this book is fantastic. I read this over the span of 2 months. I did a big book buddy read with my book club. Every single week I was like, "That's it.

[00:04:41]That's it for this week." Like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I just want I wanted to keep going every single week, but I didn't. It was a cool way to experience the book." But my goodness, it is a very fast-paced story. Again, we are following the complete unwinding of this town of Chester Mill within the span of a week. There's something that Stephen King does in this book that he does in a lot of his other books as well. I call it the king death drop. I am a huge fan of this. Not everybody will be, but I love it. And that is when he is introducing a character to you, oftentimes a main character, and he just lets you know they're not making it.

[00:05:12]Yeah, by the way, they're not making it to the end of the story. And so it is always so jarring and shocking than it otherwise would have been if you just eventually find out that character doesn't make it. Having that information as the story is progressing and not fully knowing the circumstances of when it's going to happen. I love that. And he does that for a character in this book and it works so well. So be aware of that. It's great. Now, another thing that I love about this book are the characters. Of course, the characters are what make this book so so good.

[00:05:39]Specifically, the villains. Now, one minor criticism that I could throw out in regards to Stephen King is his naming of characters, especially when he has books with a lot of characters in them.

[00:05:50]They're sometimes just a little bit too plain and a little bit too similar sounding. And sometimes that can be the only real confusing part about his books having so many characters. And I'll give you an example. Here are a couple of the characters that exist within this book.

[00:06:04]We've got Ron, Rose, Andy, Andrea, Angie, Jim, Jackie, Junior, Julia.

[00:06:10]You know, I just feel like it would be nice maybe to just throw like um a Keith in there or just something just something a little different to to switch it up. Uh that aside, I I was never all too confused. And there is a naming chart at the front if you do need to reference that as I mentioned. But I do wish King would maybe spend a little bit more time on his names. But maybe, you know, that's just how I don't know, maybe it's just more realistic to have it this way. I think for the purpose of storytelling, I would have liked some more bold names, maybe. Now, let's talk about the villains of this book. The villains are what make this book so so good in my opinion. Some of the best villains I've ever read, not just in a Stephen King book, but just in any book.

[00:06:49]And what I love so much about Big Jim Renie, who is our main bad guy in this story, is he is just a person, much like Annie Wilks, is just a person. I always tout Annie Wils as being the most scary character I've ever read. And I think I would put Big Jim right beside her. And again, I think it's just because I like that they are just people. You know, there's no supernatural element to them.

[00:07:09]They are just very evil people. And it obviously just makes it that much more believable. And Big Jim is this character who just is searching for total power, total control over this town and all of its residents. And he is this smoothtalking kind of lovable guy.

[00:07:25]you know, he's he's built himself up as being this trustworthy guy. A lot of people in town think that he's doing good, think that he has their best interests at heart, but really at the end of the day, Big Jim only cares about himself, and he will I'm not going to get into details, but he will stop at nothing to make sure that he gets what he wants. He is capable of anything, and he is a man to be feared. And then we have Junior, who is Big Jim's son, who's kind of more of this outwardly maniacal evil guy who is not really afraid to hide how evil he truly is. And we learn something about Junior early on that makes his story pretty interesting. And he is a guy that you're just kind of always nervous around. Anytime he's in a scene, you aren't really fully sure how it's going to end. And finally, the villain or group of villains that I thought were really scary to read about are the special forces squad, which is basically this police squad that Big Jim has put together to help him take control over the town. But he's essentially just hired a bunch of Junior's friends. And they're untrained.

[00:08:23]They're uneducated. And they're already not great people. And so he's kind of showing you what happens to this sort of person when they get power. And what they do with that power at times is totally horrific and honestly pretty hard to read about. Very briefly, I will talk about the good guys as well. Again, I do think the villains are what make this book as good as it is, but there are some great good guys in here and Barbie, Rusty, Linda, Brenda, Julia, Horus, the corgi. Uh, there are some great good guy characters and story lines in this book. I can't really get into the story lines too much without spoiling things, but most importantly, I cared about all of them, and they acted as this great sort of togetherness and rebellion against Big Jim. And finally, I am going to talk about the ending. I'm not going to spoil it, so don't worry if you haven't read this book yet. But I will just say that the ending of this book is what makes it so polarizing.

[00:09:11]People hate the ending of this book.

[00:09:14]They despise the ending of the story that a lot some people even say it ruined the entire book for them. So, I am going to let you know I loved the ending. I thought it was really good. I thought it fit within the themes. I thought it fit the story and I just I just really enjoyed it. And what I'm talking about basically is Stephen King explaining the existence of the dome.

[00:09:33]So, he does explain why it's there. And that is the explanation that gets a lot of people kind of upset. I really enjoyed it, but I absolutely understand why people could feel like maybe it was lazy or felt like a bit of a copout. Um, I totally get it. I totally get it. I'm just letting you know. I really liked it. The one question I keep asking myself is, would this ending have been better with no explanation? Would it have been better if it was just left up to interpretation? we had to kind of figure it out or just answer our own questions. And honestly, for me, I like knowing. I like that there were answers.

[00:10:08]I like that we get to find out why this dome is even there. And again, for me, it just kind of worked and I like I like the entire ending. So, um, take that with a grain of salt. I love Stephen King, so I'm a bit of a homer. But that was under the dome for me. I thoroughly loved this book. I would highly recommend it, especially if you're a Stephen King fan, because this book to me felt like peak Stephen King. This book felt like it could have come out in the 80s when he was just like full crazy Stephen King, you know, but it is a newer book and it just it feels like classic King the whole way through. I loved the entire thing. Let me know what you think of it. If you've read it down below, did you like the ending? Did you hate the ending? Did you like this book?

[00:10:48]Um, don't spoil anything down below, but let me know what you thought and I will catch you next time. All right, see you guys. Thank you so much for watching.

[00:10:56]Okay, bye-bye.