Title: 11/22/63Author: Stephen King
Pages: 849 pages
Published November 8th 2011 by Scribner
Source: Library
Stephen King Recommends Reading Challenge
GoodReads Description: "Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time."
As I mentioned in my book review for Carrie, I am going back and reviewing King novels that I hadn't reviewed previously. I read 11/22/63 in 2017.
“Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?"
He stared at me, baffled. "Why the f**k would you do that?”
Ladies and gentlemen, Stephen King's time traveling novel!! Jake Epping sort of stumbles upon time travel - specifically to 1958 - and what does he do with this ability? Well, a few different things, but then he decides he will stop the JFK assassination! But time is a funny thing...
Let's talk about what I loved most in this book.
The Love Story: The love story at the center of this book was absolutely one of my favorites.
The Nostalgia: When Jake first travels back to the 50s, it is fun to take that little journey back with him. King's 1958 world was incredibly detailed! And Jake's out-of-place-ness in that world was spot-on. King would probably be an excellent historical fiction writer if he so chose... King's novel was also excellently researched. I feel like I got a history lesson about the JFK assassination through reading this.
This book may not be the brand of horror we expect from King, but it is the excellent storytelling - the blending of the real world and the fantastic - and the detailed, realistic characters that we expect from him. This book was fascinating, thought-provoking, wonderful!
MY RATING:
Story: 5
Characters 5
Overall: 5 stars!!!
Comments
Post a Comment