King does a good job developing characters, and starts off with an interesting premise. However, the book tails off from there. Gratuitous violence; long, overdrawn plot; grab bag of social problems; finally fizzling out to a silly ending.

The moment I started reading it, it grabbed me. I carried the 1072 pages with me everywhere I went for 2 weeks till I got to the end. Something was always happening to keep me wanting more. There are the good people that you are wanting to see get through to the end and the bad people you want to see not make it. Just think about how stupid and crazy people would act if they were shut off from the rest of the world. Well this is even better than that!! There is every possible charater in this book. There are often times it is very dark and twisted. Which just made me want to see the good overcome the evil. Great read!!