11/22/63 by Stephen King
Boy, was I wrong about Stephen King! I've avoided him for years thinking he's just a commercial horror novelist. Somehow seeing wonderful movies based on his books didn't really alter my view. I'd completely forgotten that King is the source for the original material of Stand By Me, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption to name just a few. I decided to read 11/22/63 because I was attracted to the premise of the novel - English teacher Jake Epping travels back in time to 1958 to prevent the Kennedy assassination and thus change the course of history. Since it's only 1958, he has to wait a few years to do his deed so in the meantime he enjoys the simplicity of life in this time period, teaches at a local high school, falls in love with a lovely woman and spies on Lee Harvey Oswald, the future assassin of JFK. This is quite a book and as I said before you wonder how an author can pull all this off but Stephen King did just that. Besides the exciting plot, Jake learns quite a number of life lessons along the way. As the reader we are left wondering about particular events in our own life and what would happen if we could alter them. Where would we be now?
This was really an excellent read. It's the perfect choice for a long plane ride or for lazing around on the beach. I loved every minute of it. King writes so effortlessly it's no wonder he's known as being quite prolific. It's obvious he's a natural writer but besides that his imagination is limitless. The plot, dialogue and characters were all fantastic. I am now keen to read more King. Isn't it great to discover a writer who's been around for like forever ? Now I have quite a number of his novels and short stories to look forward to.
I'm including this review in the Stephen King project hosted by Natalie from Coffee and a Book Chick and Kathleen from Boarding In My Forties.
I really loved this book too!
ReplyDeleteThank you for participating in The Project! I'm so ecstatic you loved this book and that it's opened you up to reading more of his works! 11/22/63 is what made me interested to read his books this year, and like you, I always swore off his books. But once I read his latest, I immediately changed my mind! I loved Jake and Sadie and bawled my eyes out in the end. I admit it. BAWLED.
ReplyDeleteI will say that 11/22/63 is the one book that seems to cross over to all readers, whether fans of his work or not, so just know when going into any of his books that it may not be as knitted up tightly as this one. Don't get me wrong, I love his works, but I usually recommend to readers starting out that they be aware of his meandering in his stories, so get used to pages about one character that are briefly introduced and then they serve their purpose for the story and then they get killed off. Now, I happen to love the way he writes, so I'm totally on board with all of his books, EVEN The Tommyknockers, which is not known to be any good. At. ALL. :) If you're okay with scary, I would suggest other epic stories of his such as 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, and The Shining (I just listened to the audio version of The Shining read by Campbell Scott and it is AMAZING.)
I bawled in the end of this one too. I didn't want to give anything away in my post so I didn't mention it but yup, it's official...Stephen King made me cry.
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