11/22/63

4.5 Stars really.This book is awesome. I haven't read any [a:Stephen King 3389 Stephen King http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1261866457p2/3389.jpg] for at least a decade because, well, I guess I just got tired of the genre. There is one thing about Mr. King that would be difficult to disagree with: he's an amazing storyteller, but I just lost interest in the horror genre entirely, which would include most of his novels. Also, his style can get repetitive if it's all you're reading, which I was in high school.The basic story is about Jake Epping who gets the idea from his short order cook friend to go back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. That's the book jacket in a nutshell. But the book is so much more than that. It's a personal look at a little segment of American history that, arguably, changed the U.S. forever. This is really the idea of the book: if JFK weren't assassinated, what would American lives be like today?The aspects of the novel that I love don't have to do with time travel, so don't skip this book because of it's ‘science fiction' categorization. Jake Epping is kind of a nobody, kind of a loner, and just kind of bored with life. This all changes when he goes back in time. Here's what I loved about the book:1. I love the little cameos from characters in other [a:Stephen King 3389 Stephen King http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1261866457p2/3389.jpg] books, and I love that Jake visits the infamously evil Derry, Maine. This is icing on the cake for fans of his other works.2. Great snippets of humor can be found throughout. I wrote down a few: “[It's] cornier than Iowa and Nebraska put together,” and “It was all so Derry.”3. The suspense in the novel is nearly unmatched in my other favorite reads. I just didn't want to put the book down, for the most part. It's hard to make such a long novel that suspenseful, but the author did a great job of it.4. The author clearly studied the history of the U.S. and also (I'm sure) added his own memories. He's just a little older than my parents, but I found myself recommending this book to them just for nostalgic purposes. I was in the late 50s / early 60s when I reading the book, and I felt the fear of America during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.5. The romance was great! I'm not a romance reader, yet I liked this romance.I have a few issues with the book, but not many. It did drag on just a little bit; some parts of the story seemed like afterthoughts with too much detail. And something I don't like about King's books is still prevalent in this book: I sometimes just don't get why characters say certain things. Oftentimes, they seem really crass, and say things that are just odd. But that's normal for his books, I guess.