Reviews

It was originally published when I was twenty-one years old. Like most King back then I read it as soon as I could get my hands on a copy at my local bookshop. My King readership began at age eleven when my mother enrolled in a 'literary' book club so that I could get more new books in my hands as I was already a voracious reader. Compared to 2105, 1986 was the dark ages from a technological standpoint and so I would read book after book and then let the years slowly delete (like the passage of time does with so many things) what I had read, and more importantly, remembered about what I read. Fast forward to the summer of 2015 and for the first time since I finished graduate school in the early nineties, I felt like re-reading a couple of classics from my distant past. The first was Summer of Night by the great Dan Simmons. I have yet to write about this book, waiting until I finished re-reading It since these novels share certain themes. I loved Summer of Night again as if I were reading about it for the first time. Enough time had passed between readings to where I had forgotten the main plot point of the Simmons novel, or one of them anyway. My recollections from my first reading It in the autumn of 1986 were along the lines that King had gotten too wordy for his own good and needed a second editor with a sharper pair of text-cutting scissors. I also remember thinking that the revelation of what It really was was rather lame and feeling disappointed after so much build-up. I also recall thinking King included too much backstory and only tangentially related material. I was wrong on all accounts.
Reading It in 2015 I was struck by the fact that the backstory King includes in the novel actually serves to deepen the relationship between the characters and the town of Derry that is their childhood home. Sure there is a lot of it, but King is also writing the history of It in Derry, which is practically as old as the Earth itself. I didn't remember It being quite so cosmological but the story, in tracing the history of It (and of It's arrival in Derry) goes back to practically the dawn of time and the creation of the universe. This might sound a bit far fetched for a horror novel but King manages to pull it off. As to the actual essence of It what I have remembered over the years was that the friends discover in It's lair that It is basically Shelob but my memory was defective. The spider like shape is actually the closest thing that represents It's essence that their minds can comprehend but It isn't really a giant arachnid. It does happen to be a shape shifter of sorts and appears in many different horror forms to Stuttering Bill and his gang, all of them effectively chilling. King also does a nice job tracing It's history in Derry, narrating alternating periods in which It was active and mighty deadly. As a horror novel, It succeeds quite well, but it is not jut the horror of It, no, King's novel deals most effectively with the horror of childhood, or more specifically how horrible adults and children can be to other humans. In King's novel the worst of the lot in adult land would be Beverly's father and later her husband, who is even more physically abusive to her than her dad was. In the town of Derry we have the evil trio of Henry Bowers, Belch Huggins and Victor Criss. I like to think King named Victor Criss after Kiss drummer Peter Criss but I digress. Sadly, we all have known people just like King's characters. Every school has a trio (at least) of evil little bastards but the character of Henry Bowers is not merely a flat character meant to serve a shallow purpose. King gives the reader much backstory of Henry and we come to understand, at least in part, why he is such an evil shithead. Honestly, I think the character development is the novel's greatest strength.
I mentioned Dan Simmons's Summer of Night early on. It was published seven years after It but the Simmons novel is also a novel about a terrible horror in a small town that is ultimately defeated by a young group of kids. The Simmons novel more than the King presents what Simmons himself calls the slow time of summer. Remember this is 1960 and so there are no mobile phones, or video games, or 1500 channels of television. Instead, the kids play pick up baseball games, read comics and ride their bikes. Except in the summer of 1960, things are quite amiss in Elm Haven Illinois, much like they were in Derry Maine in 1958, and over the course of several hundred pages we follow the journey of Dale and his Bike Patrol as they fight the evil that has awakened in their small town. Another thing that Summer of Night has over It is the character of Duane McBride. I just love his character and now many years later he remains one of my favorite characters in all of genre fiction and none of the characters in It equal the likes of Duane McBride, or even Mike. This is not to say It is weak on characters. It is not. It is just that Summer of Night features some great ones. That said, what makes It the exceptional horror novel that it is is because we not only see the kids come together to defeat It in 1958 but also we read the parallel story of how they must all return to Derry to kill It once and for all in 1985. I like the way King moves backwards and forwards in time in It and the suspense that this technique builds as the novel winds up to its conclusion is very satisfying. There are also some lovely passages at the end of It that bring the story out of simple horror genre fiction and to that of literature because after they tangle with It in both time periods, the characters begin to forget what it is they've done. They forget a lot of the details beginning almost immediately and this allows King to bring in some rather poignant observations on the nature of time and human relationships that go way beyond the horror. In these passages King is merely writing what it is to be human and mortal, something we all share. Next up will be a re-reading of the sort-of sequel, the much shorter A Winter Haunting, a novel that returns the leader of the Bike Patrol back to his hometown some forty years later.

lefttoread's review against another edition

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2.0

This book started off really well. I enjoyed it and I was enjoying Stephen Kings writing again, but after a while everything was dragged out. More than half of this book could have been scrapped and I think if the book was told mainly from Bill's point of view it would of stayed interesting. I loved the characters but it just wasn't worth the hype it's gotten. It's not scary, some of the details about IT are spooky but that's about it. It's more of a story about a group of kids that grew up in Derry, Maine, and that's that. I am glad I've started getting back in to Stephen King though

luluislazy's review against another edition

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5.0

I Need some of whatever Stephen King was snorting while writing this

zsolem's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

ellascamander's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

3.5/5 I could have been 4 starts but that one scene at the end it’s extremely bizarre and unnecessary 💀

meagan_young's review against another edition

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5.0

Wow, this was truly masterful! The parallel timelines was flawless, so much better than if it had been separated. We got so much foreshadowing and mystery from the adults’ present blending into their childhood memories. Every character, including the parents, spouses, neighbors, bullies, and monsters, was fully formed and you got to know the town as a whole. There is so much life and humor mixed in with the horror and tragedy (ALL of the triggers, btw), it was a whole experience reading this book. I LOVED it!

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