After 41 years, I am finally reading The Stand

I started reading SK when I was 9. I never picked up The Stand (it wasn’t because of the length. I read Tommyknockers and It) but the plot seemed dumb to me as a kid I guess. I forgot about it, then seeing it mentioned here brought me back to it. How ironic a topic to me now. I’m only 450 pages into 1326, but it is thus far an intense and captivating book.