So I read this in about 4-5 days which is probably a record for me with a book of this length. Really stereotypical villains aside (and some extremely stupid henchmen) and the aforementioned horrible fucking teenage dialogue ("jeepers"? "JEEPERS"???) I really liked it a lot. The length didn't bother me (that's what she said) and I thought it was well-paced. I was disappointed that Junior wasn't developed further, although I liked that King showed another side of the character when he was dealing with the kids. Big Jim didn't get anything like that, unfortunately, so he remained a two-dimensional fuckhead.
The last hundred pages were a kind of a kick to the dick, but that's where the story needed to go.
Cow-kid is a fucking boss.
I start the series tonight. We'll see just how bad it is.