A review on Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining

I was so excited for this book since I first heard about it on Goodreads a year or so ago being in the works. I pre-ordered it and waited impatiently for Amazon to ship it to my house. Anyways, I'm going to do my best not to spoil anything about either The Shining or Doctor Sleep, but I'm finding it hard to come up with something of substance to write without doing so!

I suggest reading The Shining before reading Doctor Sleep as it goes back at numerous times and talks about key (and creepy) moments in Danny's life back when he was living in The Overlook Hotel and the things he and his family went through. But if you've already read The Shining, Doctor Sleep isn't really a direct sequel to it, which I enjoyed because it is its own separate story about Dan, now a grown man, at rock bottom and how he helps a little girl who shines like him.

Doctor Sleep starts off by briefly covering the aftermath of the experiences at The Overlook before going into present day (which was probably my favorite part of the book because I always wonder "what happens next?!" with any book when it's over). There are a whole new set of "monsters" in this book with their own supernatural and magical powers, which I thought could have been scarier, but the entire story was still really good and with exceptionally creepy moments, as can be expected from Stephen King. I feel like instead of going for fear factor, this book was more about developing the characters, which was done really well.

And just a total sidenote: I thought it was kind of funny how the girl in this book thought Dan reminded her of Jax from Sons of Anarchy. I love that Dan is hot haha!