a house, a family, a town, ...a horror

i started reading The Stand last night. unofficially, that makes 232 books i'm in the middle of. there's something about stephen kind that just bores the hell out of me sometimes, but other times he really is masterful. so many characters and situations just seem like caricatures of characters and situations. they seem like the mtv of situations. they're so obvious and annoy me. but when dialogue heats up or action begins he can suck you in for twenty pages a clip. actually, it reminds me a lot of michael chrichton. i just wish i didn't have to read the boring parts to enjoy the good parts, but you do. but i'm getting better at keeping focused through boring things again and so i thought i'd give the stand a try again (i'd read thirty pages before). let's see what happens with this