11/22/63

Stephen King
11/22/63 Cover

11/22/63

zprofound
8/23/2017
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This is my first review on WWE!

This is also the first Stephen King book I have ever read. I was warned that his books are very long and I am a slow reader but I made it through after 8 months.

I can't speak for It or The Stand or any of the massive tomes by Stephen King, but I think the length of this novel is perfect. In order for the tone to be set for this book, you have to have a very narrow and subtle kind of time travel experience. This isn't some kind of action movie pacing where people are zapped into the past to abruptly stop something. You need to have time for the main character to settle in, reflect on how he's fitting in to this new timeline, and even patiently fall in love. Then you hit the reader with the brooding, the horrors, and the monsters. But the monsters in this novel are not like maybe the more concrete forms you would see in a ghost story. Rather the monster is perhaps more menancing... an undefined force in the form of a past that does want to be changed. What if the universe was keeping you from some kind of plan of action? You really couldn't hide from it, and that's the menace that haunted Jake Epping in this book.

I liked how there was just enough otherwordly creepiness in a story that was otherwise very well grounded in a thorough reflection of what it would be like for a character to be put into this situation. The ending reminded me a little bit of the end of Interstellar to be honest, and it was not what I was expecting but very touching.

Overall, I'm not sure if this is typical of some of Stephen King's other well regarded work, but the book had a unique tone and unique experience. Not quite sci-fi, historical fiction, romance, horror, or anything else.