Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

It by Stephen King

20 reviews

bg_oseman_fan's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0


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cloudbooks's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

This book was just not for me.

The bad:
Simply put, it was too long. 500 pages of this could have been cut out completely and it would have been a better story. I couldn't keep all the characters in my head and I lost track of who and where and how.

For a book of over 1000 pages, it spent so long talking about anecdotes, about side characters, about unimportant scenes and in general it does not talk much about the monster. You easily spend 200 pages waiting for the monster. It's not scary. It's just annoying.

Also kids having sex in a sewer as the solution to killing the monster? No thank you. I understand why but I simply didn't like it. 

The good:
The monster was terrifying when it was there. The writing is really good too but this is Stephen King. That's to be expected. 

I will never touch this book again

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rtthalia's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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some_froggish_lad's review

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the novelty of the horror genre wore off, and I was left with a challenge of a 1,300 page book

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hiddeninfantasy's review against another edition

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

3.5


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cinderrunner's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

Please excuse any typing errors as I am too lazy to edit
There are some good things about this book, but the bad significantly outweigh them. This is one of the most needlessly offensive and problematic books i have ever read. The only thing horrifying about this novel is that King had the audacity to include so much needless hatred and is still being praised for it. The level of racism, sexism, pedophilia/sexualization of minors, anti semitisim, etc is FAR beyond anything that is warranted by the plot and its honestly inexcusable. If you took a shot everytime King used the N word with a hard R, you'd die of alcohol poisoning somewhere between the one third and halfway mark. King is constantly using language and scenarios that sexualize Beverly, constantly mentioning the way her 12 year old body is maturing, painting her as a (and im quoting here) "whore" from almost every chatacters POV. Shes even sexualized in her own POVs.
Bill's catatonic wife is literally likened to a blow up doll at a sex store
Richie is known for doing voices and almost all of them are racist stereotypes, his go to one being the charactature of a black child like you'd see in a minstrel show. They are constantly using Stan being jewish as a punchline. It feels intentional that
the jewish character is the one he kills before they even get together as adults
, the female is the one who spends her whole life abused, and
the black character is the one King cast to stay in Derry and remain poor while the others prosper as adults
. And this isnt even the big shit like the ENTIRE CHILD SEX SCENE. With literal 11 to 12 year olds. Which King has never retracted or apologized for (from what I've seen) but only said it aged poorly cause people now are more sensitive....like its irrational to take offense to an adult writing kids having a, for lack of a better term, gang bang. And again, most of this is completely irrelevant to the plot and could have been excluded with zero detriment to the story. I will admit that if you are writing about minorities and setting it in the 50s, a certain level of bigotry is warranted. But the level to which King took it is gross and uncalled for. He could have just as easily NOT written any minority characters if this is his idea of representation. The fact that he, of his own freewill, wrote this level of offensive stereotypes, micro aggressions, bigotry and full on volatil hate and has never apologized for it, or made a statement against it, is sick. And the fact that it got through editing and publishing and is STILL being praised and rated 5 stars speaks volumes to what we are willing to let straight, cis, white men in power get away with. I can't imagine a single POC, female, or religious minority character writing the story the way King did, even in the 80s.
It is also overlong, it could have easily been 400 pages shorter than it was. It dragged on and on. It doesnt genuinely pick up or reach a true climax til around page 950 (in my edition) so like 150 pages away from the end. That's ridiculous. King is constantly overloading the book with lore building and exposition that really isnt needed past a certain point. It took me 4 months of on and off reading to finally get through this thing. Ive never taken more than a month to read a book, even dense ones like the entire Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series, in my adult life. 
Most people I have seen, even those who praise this book, don't count this as a book they would ever reread. If that's not a red flag i don't know what is. I cant think of a single book, even thick and complex ones, that i loved and wouldn't pick up again. 
PROS: King is a genuinely skilled writer on a technical level and the book is well crafted. There are very thoughtful and interesting themes around childhood vs adulthood, the transition between the two, and the power of faith/belief. It really could have been a gorgeous novel if he leaned more into that earlier in the book and cut down on all the unnecessary bigotry and lore building. I likely would have loved this if it was shorter and less hate filled. 

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jackyjoojoo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Stephen king is a fucking creep.
 ok so the plot is good HOWEVER this book is so deeply flawed, Stephen king using the fact that he has a black character to excessively use the n slur, the 7 page orgy scene of 11 year olds, the low-key romanticisation of abuse and Stephen king's apparent inability to describe a female character without mentioning her tits.
the book is so excessively long for no reason and its obvious just how much cocaine he was on when her wrote it.

just watch the film's I promise this book is not worth it xx



4 months later -
ok so originally i rated this 2.5 stars but in retrospect that was wayyy to generous and honestly this book is literal dog shit,, just watch the films i cannot stress this enough omfg

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izzettl's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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starlessnights's review against another edition

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1.0


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peachmoni's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I liked this way more than I thought I would. I am a fan of the miniseries and the movies, but when I started the novel, I found it to be quite slow and not very engrossing. However, that changed as the story of Derry pulls you in.

I would recommend this, but please be warned that there's:
  1. the death of a child that is quite disturbing. It's written explicitly, though not graphic in terms of blood or gore. I wasn't able to read it; I skipped those few paragraphs.
  2. a sex scene between a group of 11-12 year olds toward the end of the book.

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