11/22/63
Ratings766
Average rating4.3
A fantastic, substantial read. Very different from King's usual fare. (That's not to say that his other works aren't fantastic or substantial, just that I'm used to him writing straight-up horror, for the most part, and this is not that.)
When I read the synopsis, I almost didn't want the book, it was so absurd. But a friend had recommended it, so I started it.
And Stephen King did it again. At some point I believed it so strongly I almost looked for a basement of my own...
My second time reading this, about 10 years later. When an author as works like The Stand, and The Shining (not to mention huge worlds and explorations of them, like The Dark Tower series), it's hard to point to a magnum opus. Still, I wonder if this is it.
11/22/63 isn't a horror like many of King's works, not really. Yet, it features some horrific events, with the same can't-put-the-book-down grip. It may well be his most romantic book - and is there any kind of story that carries romance like time travel?
This capped a month of King for me, which started with On Writing (I suppose I read that in October, but I'm counting it) and included Carrie, Fairy Tale, The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, Duma Key, and ended with 11/22/63. I haven't read such a concentrated dose of King's work since High School. I had such a good time! It taught me a lot about things King does in his work, phrases he likes, and themes that recur in his work. Mostly, it made clear to me things that I do that I took from King over the years.
I liked this, although it's not among my favorites of King's work. I do think it will be a good recommendation for readers who might be turned off by some of his creepier books.
This book was a page-turner and the extensive research on setting, real people, and time period encouraged me to seek out primary sources to check the facts. If a work of fiction does that for me, I consider it a successful book.
However, the three-star rating comes from the conclusion that fell flat and disappointed me after spending so much time with the book.
Dear Mr. Stephen King,
I hate you! WHY would you write a book like 11/22/63, when you KNEW, that your Constant Readers will have a hard time finding ANYTHING that can match it for a loooong time? Was that your agenda? Writing a book, that people will talk about, and long to come back to, for ages? You made me laugh out loud twice, made me cry (in public!!) thrice; you had me turning pages on the edge of my seat and being downright frustrated for 800+ pages. You wanted to destroy readers' experiences and expectations for the next stack of books they're going to read? If so, you succeeded. I loved the book and thus I hate you.
Sincerely.
Very good latter-day Stephen King. Probably could've lost a couple hundred pages & been just as good or better.
A definite page turner and good addition to the time-travel genre. My only beef, really, is that King used the word “obdurate” too much. I get it, King. The past does not want to be changed. No need to hit your reader over the head with it.
Did not finish and do not intend to. The concept was awesome and some parts have the old King spark, but overall it meanders too much before getting to the main plot. Also, the protagonist seems to settle to easily into the past as if there are no changes. Sad to say it but King appears to be losing his spark
Loved it.
It's been a long time since I'd read any King and it was fun to get back into his style. I especially liked the warts-and-all way the late 50's-early 60's are presented. I'm so completely over the way baby boomers romanticize that period of American history.
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.
absolute tour de force. I was hoping for an ending along the lines Mr. King chose and just like the end of the Dark Tower series I felt totally satisfied!!
THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD, OMG GO READ IT RIGHT NOW. I think in a matter of weeks I've gotten addicted to Stephen King books. “11/22/63” tells the story of Jake Epping, a present-day English teacher. Jake often visits a diner, Al's Fatburger, and as Al succumbs to cancer, he tells Jake how he had stumbled upon a wormhole years ago that allows him to travel back to the summer of 1958, every visit a “reset” of the time before. Al convinces Jake that he has to go back and prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, a task Al was sure would change history for the better, but was not able to complete due to his illness. However, both Al and Jake discover the past does not want to be changed, and will do anything in its power to prevent change from happening; even the smallest alterations to history can cause ripples in the future. Jake knows he'll have to stay in the '50s and '60s for more than five years in order to prevent the assassination, and after so long of living in the past, he might not want to come back to the present after all.
Wow. Don't expect to get anything else done while you're reading this. It has to be among the top 3 books I've ever read.
