3A Independent Reading discussion

So the ending of this book was a bit of a hot mess, but I still enjoyed it and here's why. You can't have a horror novel without a climactic confrontation. It's expected. Like I said in my last post, the novel had many weird loose ends to rectify including a possessed priest, giant worms, a haunted bell and town people bent on ending the world through invited an evil entity to emerge. I think how Simmons tried to wind all of those up was the resulting mess that ensued. The most ridiculous was the battle with two giant worms as two kids tried to fill a milk truck up with gasoline (452). It was so silly and contrived that it just didn't work. The climactic scene involving the destruction of the school was equally arduous and messy (485). It was expected, but it lacked the character jeopardy the other chapters promised and pulled through. The reader suspected which characters would save the day, which character would be rescued at the last minute and happy endings abounded. If Simmons hadn't decided to make this horror novel into about four different B-movie horror tropes, it would have left a better taste in my mouth. 498 pages is a lot to devote time to with the payoff what was given.