11/22/63

Executive Summary: I'm torn on this book. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't at all what I was expecting. If you're looking for Sci-Fi or a lot of alternate history stuff, look somewhere else. If you're looking for an interesting story with a Sci-Fi/alternate history backdrop this might be worth checking out.

Audio book: This is the first audiobook I've listened to by Craig Wasson. I found him to be excellent.

He does voices for the various characters. Mr. King makes use of, for lack of a better term, I'll steal from his Dark Tower stuff and call them Twinners. Mr. Wasson uses similar voices and mannerisms in their speaking that add a little extra something to the reading.

This is just about the perfect book for me on a road trip. It's long, helps pass the time, but is not exactly something I'm sure I'd enjoy simply sitting down to read.

To me if you're going to do this book, I think audio is the way to go (this coming from someone who prefers to read over listen).

Full Review
I've been a big fan of Stephen King since high school. He's largely considered to be a horror writer, but I've actually read very little of his horror.

I think most King fans would tell that even in his horror books there is a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. Mr. King is not often one to scare you with the realistic (and least we all hope not).

This book is one of the few I've read that has little to nothing to do with the Dark Tower. The combination of sci-fi and time travel had me intrigued.

On that front I was disappointed. This book at it's core is really just a story about Jake Epping, school teacher from (you guessed it) Maine.

He is recruited by his friend (though really he's seem more like a good acquaintance than a friend) Al, and sent on a mission back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination.

As a child of the 80's, the Kennedy assassination doesn't resonate with me as much as I'm sure it does for those who lived it. The “watershed moment”, as Mr. King likes to call it, of my life thus far was 9/11.

There is some interesting theorizing about the good (and the bad) of what might have happened had Kennedy lived in this book.

There is an interesting explanation of the Time Travel (though it doesn't come till nearly the very end).

The bulk of this story however, is about a man from 2011 living life in the early 1960s. It has very little to do with Kennedy, time travel or the larger ramifications of changing a watershed moment.

I still enjoyed the book, but it just wasn't what I was expecting.