My first King novel. As many have said, the movie adaption and ending is much better than the book. 

I’ve heard others describe King as unable to write female characters without sexualizing them and that is unfortunately true in this novel as well.

The main character sleeps with another woman after being away from his wife for less than a day. Nothing about this novel needed or warranted that. Feels like gross self-insert wish fulfillment on the authors point.

While I loved the movie adaptation and thus thought The Mist would be a good option as my first King novel, I think I would have been better off skipping it.