11/22/63
Ratings766
Average rating4.3
My first book by Stephen king. Two words: time travel, love story and a gripping plot makes this book AMA-zing! I mean, what else can I read from SK that would be equally good???
Uit! Eindelijk!
Het is nu niet dat dit een slecht boek was, helemaal niet, maar het kon me toch nooit helemaal grijpen. Als je een boek in het midden van een zin aan de kant kunt leggen, zonder dat je gepikeerd bent, dan is dat toch geen al te best teken.
Het verhaal vond ik wel goed, alleen wat langdradig. En, zoals gezegd, ik zat er nooit echt helemaal in.
Il libro è stato bellissimo! Ci ho messo tanto a leggerlo perché non volevo che finisse.
L'unico problema è stata la traduzione, non mi è piaciuta per niente in alcuni punti. Ho letto il libro cartaceo in italiano con il testo in inglese sul Kindle e, diverse volte, il senso delle frasi non era lo stesso. Sto riscontrando lo stesso problema con Mr. Mercedes (il traduttore è un altro però).
After watching the first episode of the series I decided to read the book first and I'm so glad I did. This was my first Stephen King book and I loved it. The plot, characters and the writing style made it a really quick read despite its length and the ending wasn't a cop out either so I highly recommend it. Looking for some other Stephen King recommendations now.
I've always been a sucker for time travel. When the author highlights very specific rules for how it works in that universe and sticks to them it makes for even more interesting stories in my eyes. King does an amazing job in this one of setting up the structure needed to explore his main objective – what would happen if someone stopped Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating JFK?
I've always been a sucker for time travel. When the author highlights very specific rules for how it works in that universe and sticks to them it makes for even more interesting stories in my eyes. King does an amazing job in this one of setting up the structure needed to explore his main objective – what would happen if someone stopped Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating JFK?
This might be one of my favorite (if not my favorite) books of all time. I read this book 8 years ago. I gave it 4 stars then but since have realized it's 100% a 5 star read.
I decided to re-read it because I realized it's the book I've read that I've thought about the most after reading it.
It's so long, and there are a good 200 pages that are slow. Not boring or uninteresting, just slow. But this book is thought provoking, entertaining, complex, and just downright good. The characters are so deep yet relatable, the storyline is a bit outrageous yet somehow so normal and readable, and the love story is beautiful.
I can understand it's not for everyone, there are some incredibly violent scenes, and it's heavy in its historical facts, but this book will make you laugh, cry, happy, sad, and mad. It's beautiful, and you should read it.
Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐
There were many lengths that bored me sometimes. But looked at as a whole, this story is very good – the first book ever that made me cry at the end!
Stephen King often saves the day for me with his endings, so I can't be too mad at him for the lengths in the middle of his books.
This is a book that manages to capture the beauty of its time period while keeping the science fiction aspect. It combines different elements of genres. There is a historical fiction piece that examines what Lee Harvey Oswald's personal life could've entailed. Along with the main story surrounding around Jake Epping living life in the past, and as much as he falls for the time period so does the reader. It's a long book but the story manages to keep the reader on their toes with various hints at bigger mysteries. The last half turns up the suspense adding to an already thrilling read. Overall the book is a story that is enjoyable from start to finish.
3.5 - 4, but they don't allow half stars. Pretty fun. I feel like it kind of fizzled at the end and honestly, SpoilerI didn't go much for the whole Sadie saga, which became the focal point as the book went on. But it was still mostly very interesting, moderately smart, and a fun time-travel adventure.
This is one of the best King books that I've read in years, a return to the story telling of It and Salem's Lot.
I don't remember whose recommendation convinced me to pick up this book; just that it was along the lines of “this isn't the Stephen King you read in your teens”. And it sure isn't. 11/22/63 was unexpectedly good: powerful, moving, with deeply human characters facing extraordinary challenges.
Tome-length jokes aside, King's writing is crisp and riveting. It was hard to put this book down. The story is a good one and the protagonist/narrator exquisitely self-aware; we feel his conflicts. King has matured tremendously. (Or is it me? If I reread his 1980's work will I find this level of compassion and intelligence?)
Unfortunately for me he still feels the need to infuse some mumbo-jumbo: the past “harmonizing” with itself, two aura-of-evil presences, and a sort of sense of a Grand Scheme Of Things. Not much, just very light occasional sprinklings, but enough to drop to four stars. I guess I'm sensitive to those.
Brilliant, like all of the best King it's not really about the Kennedy assassination and it's all the better for it. The resolution of the whole time-travel aspect I didn't love, what actually happened with the time travel I did really like.
One of the best books I have read in a long time. Extremely thought-provoking and very difficulty to put down.
I rarely give out five stars, but Stephen King has outdone everything I've read this year. 11/22/63 is a fantastic time travel novel that brings an entirely new dimension to the genre. It's an everyman tale where there's no scientists or impossible technology. Just a simple man trying to make a difference. I do think the end dragged on just a little, but 11/22/63 ended in a great place not to lower its rating. Overall, a fantastic book and one I may revisit in the future.
A really enjoyable time travel story, 11/22/63 skips through parts of King's mythos before settling on the titular task of dealing with one man's mission to stop the Kennedy assassination. In a lot of ways this book resonated with me in a way similar to Bag of Bones - it's the love story you walk away with, the other events (horrific or world changing) are just decoration.
This blew me away. It's like 3 books in one. A documentary about life in the 50s/60s, a very touching love story and a history book. A must read for everyone.
A decent read, but a really dumb prelude to the eventual ending bumped it down a star. Just felt like the payoff wasn't up to the rest of the story...
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.
While this is not the worst of Stephen King, it's not the best either. But I am a bit biased as time travel stuff just usually doesn't work for me. Reviews saying that Stephen King likes to romanticize the 50s in general and this book in particular are correct. I don't agree with the haters on the love story.
If you like to read there are certainly worse things to put yourself through. It read pretty easy, and I thought the ending was decent.