11/22/63
Ratings765
Average rating4.3
sobbing and throwing myself on the ground as i type this.
One of the best books i've ever read. Oh. My. God.
A fantastic book about time travel and the famous butterfly effect associated with it. But that alone would not be King. His characters literally live. The resulting tension is almost unbearable. And the fact that Jake Epping travels back there precisely to save JFK raises this time travel thriller to unimagined heights. My favorite book.
Give it a 4.5
Brutal ending, great gripping book. After my last couple readings I got too used to a perfect ending
I tried, but I just couldn't get into this one. The concept is fascinating, but the execution? Fairly typical for King, overly long prose in a lot of places.
Saluto questo inatteso capolavoro con grande tristezza, e con un misto di invidia e ammirazione. Invidia per l'incredibile immaginazione che #King mette in ogni suo libro, e per il fatto che piacerebbe tanto averne anche solo un pizzico anche io, e ammirazione per l'incredibile lavoro che ha fatto per scrivere un romanzo di fantascienza basato sulla storia dell'assassinio di #JFK.
Mi mancheranno George Amberson/Jake Epping e Sadie Dunhill... Mi mancherà l'uomo della tessera gialla, verde, nera, od ocra
I tried to read it. I wanted to like it. But it just didn't hold my attention. Maybe I'll try again in the future, but right now I have to abandon this one.
I've always had a bit of an up and down relationship with King's books - at the core they are great stories, but they're often long, meandering and bloated with unnecessary tangents.
This book did have some of those things, but compared to others it was nearly as bad and I ended up really enjoying it. I even teared up a little at the end!
Definitely my favourite King to date.
Not just a time travel book.
A man is shown a portal back into 1958 but no matter how long you stay in the past, the portal always brings you back to two minutes after left in the present. The man who shows it to him had tried to stop the assassination of JFK but became too ill and came back to find somebody else to take on the task. So Jake takes Al's comprehensive notes of the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald and goes back to stop him.
Jake does a test run, preventing a different tragedy that effected a friend of his in his distant childhood. He returns to find unexpected consequences for changing that kid's life. A twist of this portal is that each time you go back in time it resets all your changes back to the original, so he goes back to find a different way to save his friend, and to stay there from 1958 to 1963 and stop Oswald.
We get a look at the horrors of life for many people in the southern US states in that era, the racism, the sexism, the poverty. And Jake meets a pretty woman and his life of tracking Oswald gets intertwined with a love story. Once again Jake imagines he can do another reset and fix a tragedy in this woman's life, but it means starting the whole thing over again.
He also discovers that 'the past does not want to be changed' as things suddenly pop up to prevent him from taking the next planned step. And he finds 'harmonies' as other things repeat. 'That car is the same as the car in another city'. That kind of coincidence. Trouble is, sometimes that car really is the car from an earlier encounter.
As the day 11.22.63 approaches things speed up. There is more disruption and the day itself becomes totally chaotic.
No spoilers here, but a few days after everything is over Jake finds his way back to the portal. It's changed after the five years he's been in the past. And when he at last gets back to the present he finds a dystopian world of nuclear war, earthquakes, social breakdown and violence.
That past the didn't want to be changed? It meant business.
3.5/5
Разве существовала более зловещая фраза, чем вам нужно увидеть своими глазами, что вы наделали?
My first Stephen King book.
Needless to say there will be many more to follow. This one has cemented itself squarely behind Lonesome Dove for my favorite novel of all time.
Особисто мені важко йшла. Хоч і не подібна на Кінга звичайного. Більш як історія, але дуже багато фактів і посилань на чисто американську культуру і історію. Читав не те щоб довго але з перервами на прочитання інших книг.
“A veces la vida escupe coincidencias que ningún escritor de ficción se atrevería a copiar.”
Brilliant book. Jake was very well written and the characters of Deke, both Miz's, Mike, Al and so on were great. Lee Oswald was great and his relationship with Marina was intriguing. I also loved the minor once offs like Silent Mike or the Jump Rope Girls. King does a great job at painting the picture of what exactly is happening. I think my favourite part of the book was the whole Jodie arc - it really felt that Jake was at his peak and the blossoming relationship with Sadie was great. Unfortunately I can't give this 5/5 as I think Sadie didn't get a whole lot of time as a character and I felt she was more of a love interest rather than her own individual - these grievances are minimal as she does show individuality following the Clayton incident and the whole 11/22/63 scene. I also felt the alternate history was undercooked with only ~10 pages given to a scenario in which JFK lives - basically it's bad, not because of him as a president but as the rules of time travel which the book argues that time travel is not good, but sort of is for love? It's not really an alternate history, sci-fi book but more of a 1950s, 1960s period, romance drama. I think the book was at its best when it did that versus the time travel of the Card Men which was not well written I feel. The fact that the alternative wrong timeline was given such little time shows that it wasn't really ever a sci-fi book but rather a ‘foreigner in a strange land' story. It's definitely interesting because it shows how different the 2010s are to the 1950-60s. The high intensity scenes like the Dunning, Clayton and Kennedy incidents are well written but ultimately feels more drama and detective novel rather than something we'd see in sci-fi. It uses time travel as a means to talk about a different period in our lives, and a well written one at that, but falls flat on alternative history, sci-fi and explanation of time travel.
“22/11/'63” di Stephen King è un viaggio letterario straordinario che abbraccia il passato, il presente e il futuro con una maestria narrativa che solo il re dell'horror può offrire. Con le sue 750 pagine, questo romanzo non solo cattura l'immaginazione, ma la tiene prigioniera in un vortice avvincente di suspense, emozioni e riflessioni sulla natura del tempo e delle scelte umane.
Il libro si apre con Jake Epping, insegnante di inglese, che scopre di poter viaggiare nel tempo attraverso un misterioso varco nascosto in un ristorante. La sua missione diventa quella di impedire l'assassinio di John F. Kennedy nel 1963, una sfida monumentale e piena di complicazioni. Ciò che emerge è una trama intricata e ben congegnata, dove il passato ha un impatto straordinario sul presente e sul futuro.
Stephen King, con la sua consueta abilità nel creare atmosfere ricche e dettagliate, riesce a dipingere un ritratto autentico degli anni ‘60. La precisione storica si fonde armoniosamente con la trama fantastica, creando un mondo che sembra tanto reale quanto surreale. I dettagli della vita quotidiana di quell'epoca sono descritti con tale maestria che ci si sente davvero trasportati indietro nel tempo.
I personaggi di “22/11/'63” sono magistralmente delineati. Jake Epping è un protagonista complesso e ben sviluppato, le sue vicende personali si intrecciano abilmente con la sua missione. Gli altri personaggi, sia quelli storici che quelli creati dall'immaginazione di King, sono altrettanto vividi e memorabili. L'autore riesce a farci affezionare a loro, creando connessioni emotive che amplificano l'impatto delle loro storie.
La struttura del romanzo, con le sue sottili sfumature di genere, rende “22/11/'63” un'opera eclettica. Si tratta di un thriller temporale che si evolve in un racconto epico, una storia d'amore e una riflessione filosofica sulla possibilità di cambiare il corso della storia. King equilibra abilmente gli elementi di suspense con momenti di introspezione e umorismo, creando una lettura che va ben oltre il mero intrattenimento.
La scrittura di King è coinvolgente, magnetica. Le pagine scorrono con una facilità che sfida la lunghezza del libro, e ci si ritrova spinti ad avanzare sempre di più, desiderosi di scoprire cosa riserva il prossimo capitolo. Il ritmo serrato e le continue sorprese mantengono alta l'attenzione del lettore, garantendo che ogni pagina sia un'esperienza avvincente.
In conclusione, “22/11/'63” è una pietra miliare nella carriera di Stephen King. Un'opera che dimostra la sua versatilità come autore e la sua capacità di tenere incollati i lettori a ogni parola. Leggere questo libro significa immergersi completamente in un mondo affascinante e ricco di sfumature, guidati dalla penna di un maestro che continua a dimostrare il suo dominio nell'arte della narrazione.
Came for Kennedy stayed for Sadie.
I started reading this book on the premise of: we are travelling back in time to save the president. Which in paper sounds awesome. But at the end I kept reading because I was more invested in the romantic subplot than actually saving the president.
I had a few problems with how the time travel works and I really struggled to get through the scenes where we stalked Oswald.
Firstly my problems with the time travel. In this novel we have a very soft time travel mechanic. Our main character enters a closet and appears in 1958. When he enters again he returns to 2011 exactly 2 minutes later. This is neat my problem come with the harmony and how fast it escalates.
The concept of harmony in this book is that the past harmonices with itself, or basically that history repeats itself. At the beginning this harmony is just characters with similar names and lifestyles across different towns. Then it becomes repeated actions across towns and it even becomes like a premonition tool. But at the end, all of a sudden it somehow provokes earthquakes. I found this harmony thing a neat part, with references to other towns and as a plot device to make the final chase to stop Oswald more tens and interesting. And then all of a sudden the whole us is constantly being hit by earthquakes because the president lived... there you lost me buddy. I could follow all other events that lead to the world in 2011 being like that, but the earthquakes killed me. I know it is a petty critique and it was not so bad and it didn't take away from the enjoyment of the novel it just bothered me at the end because I had the feeling it came out of nowhere.
Speaking of the past not wanting to be changed, I didn't like the whole amnesia part towards the end. It felt as a cheap way to make the end longer, because in no moment I felt like he was going to miss the assassination because he forgot who killed the president. It was nice because it shows there are no infinite money glitches in time travel. But with the beating it would have been enough, you don't need the whole amnesia part.
Secondly the Oswald plot. I did not like it, the whole stalking sequences I understand their purpose, but felt they were excessive. I understand the whole point of those scenes is to humanise Oswald and to generate a dilemma for the protagonist concerning the window of uncertainty. But they felt boring and excessive. I also got at a point overwhelmed by the amount of names introduced. If these parts where a little bit shorter it would have been a 4 stars for me.
Finally to the good part of the story. At the middle of the book we get introduced to the romantic interest of the main character and surprisingly I loved it. I never thought I could be more invested in the romantic subplot than the actual plot, but it happens with this novel. I loved every single interaction between them and the epilogue got tearing up.
All in all it is a great novel and would recommend it, but not as your first king novel. It is a little bit too long and some parts I had to push through but it was worth it for the epilogue.
This was my first SK book. Truly incredible, I couldn’t put it down. I thought I was reading a time travel book but the sci-fi elements turned out to be merely a backdrop for a wonderful exploration of the rich relationships the main character builds along the way. I didn’t expect to have such an emotional response to this book, but was devastated to finish this story and no longer get to spend time with King’s characters.
This is the first full Stephen King novel I've read. Despite its length (nearly 1,000 pages) I never felt bored. The story isn't particularly fast paced either. Just something about King's writing style. I understand now why he's one of the bestselling authors of all time. I think this book was hovering around 4 stars until the final handful of pages. I shed more than a few tears at that ending.
My favorite book of all time. People may say Stephen Kings has problems with endings, but this is truly a masterpiece, every character is so great and the plot is simply magnificent.
Highly recommended.
When I first started reading this I had some doubts, I had only ever read Needful Things by Stephen King before and that had been a struggle. The fact that, let's be honest, King's books can only be described as ‘hefty chonkers', a book like Needful things starts slow and then leads to one final, big climax meant it was very difficult to get through. Now, 11/22/63 is different. Incredibly so. It really throws you in the deep end and is full of crescendos all contributing to the grand finale of the novel. Each character is so well thought out and complex in its own way it is almost impossible to think that they did not exist in real life (aside from, of course, those taken directly from history such as JFK or Lee Oswald). The absurdity of the novel makes it impossible to set down and even more so to forget. I was also pleasantly surprised at the romantic aspect of this novel. From other readers I had heard that King tends to focus more on the physical than the emotional, something I definitely picked up in Needful Things. This is why the relationship between Jake/George and Sadie shocked me, in the best way possible. As a romantic at heart, I cannot deny I shed many tears over their love story.