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jannus's review against another edition
2.0
This most definitely did not need to be this long, my god.
mroderique's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
[audiobook] You mean to tell me that I read over a thousand pages of SK's self-indulgent drivel for him to do *that* to Beverly
starrynite86's review against another edition
5.0
This was amazing and very detailed. I liked the ending aside from the sadness.
lisacerezo's review against another edition
5.0
I read this book as a teenager and it has haunted me ever since. For whatever reason, I chose to read this at night before going to sleep, and I distinctly remember the face of Pennywise leering from the jet black cover and spine. The story terrified me so much that I always had to put the book face down, spine away, to keep Pennywise from watching me while I slept. If you’re looking for a good King-sized scare, this is it.
olivegeez's review against another edition
4.0
I admittedly first started reading this book to talk about it with some friends and a coworker, who all know I love horror. King and I didn’t have a good start. I read The Shining my freshman year of high school and notably did not like it. Senior year I read Joyland which proved to be a much better reading experience and in 2022 (at age 22) I read Pet Sematary because I liked the movie a lot. Pet Sematary is a solid entryway into Stephen King, because it got me to read some of the stories in Night Shift and to try out this book, especially for a summer read. It feels like a quintessential summer book. The main plot I don’t think could take place elsewhere besides the summers. It feels like a really long campfire story, at times random yet evokes emotion and nostalgia.
“Come on back and we’ll see if you remember the simplest thing of all: how it is to be children, secure in belief and thus afraid of the dark.”
I will say the audiobook narrated by Steven Weber has been a huge help in keeping my pace (I read it in 25 days) and throughout this doorstopper of a novel and is one of the best audiobooks I’ve heard. Weber provides distinct vocal choices for each character to differentiate between them all (and in a 1000 page novel, there are a shit ton of them). The audiobook in supplement to the paperback keeps me engaged.
The novel does get you engaged into Derry as a character. The descriptions taking place and the depth in which it’s described, I could imagine Neibolt Street as if it were my own small town. I like that immersion into a place.
The characters are intriguing on their own, but I wish their bonds were more fleshed out with each other. Everyone is obsessed with Bill being the leader of the club which makes since because his brother’s murder kicks off the beginning of the novel, but outside of the narrative I don’t see Bill as having a leadership personality. He gradually grows confidence throughout but it’s sort of shaky at best. Stan is far more level headed, but outside of that I forget Stan is apart of the narrative. He’s not given to do much aside from providing a part in an inciting incident but the flashbacks hardly include him as a focal point, which makes me question his inclusion in the novel at all.
In some ways, It was ahead of its time. The subjects of healing one’s inner child and generational trauma seem pervasive in modern media. Of course It is limited in some ways regarding these topics because it was written in 1980s. The language wasn’t as widely used and the culture different. In other ways, It is quite reflective of its time settings in both the 1950’s and 1980’s. There is implicit and explicit homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, domestic violence and sexual abuse, animal cruelty, child abuse and child murder. While I believe horror is a transgressive genre and not too much offends me by taking place in horror, I found myself putting the book down just because of the emotions it would evoke.
A compliant I do have is sometimes I feel like King is telling me what is going on rather than showing me. And after 600 pages of feeling that, I took a slight break because nothing quite felt present in the narrative. Maybe this was a stylistic choice representative of how as adults we are rarely present as we are children; constantly thinking about our pasts and worrying for the future. Or maybe I’m giving King too much credit.
The last 200 pages were an emotional wreck for me, although I feel like the description of the storm could have been pared down. Despite the length, some inconsistencies, and some characterization issues, I think It is a must read if you like horror, sci-fi, and a multigenerational story.
“Come on back and we’ll see if you remember the simplest thing of all: how it is to be children, secure in belief and thus afraid of the dark.”
I will say the audiobook narrated by Steven Weber has been a huge help in keeping my pace (I read it in 25 days) and throughout this doorstopper of a novel and is one of the best audiobooks I’ve heard. Weber provides distinct vocal choices for each character to differentiate between them all (and in a 1000 page novel, there are a shit ton of them). The audiobook in supplement to the paperback keeps me engaged.
The novel does get you engaged into Derry as a character. The descriptions taking place and the depth in which it’s described, I could imagine Neibolt Street as if it were my own small town. I like that immersion into a place.
The characters are intriguing on their own, but I wish their bonds were more fleshed out with each other. Everyone is obsessed with Bill being the leader of the club which makes since because his brother’s murder kicks off the beginning of the novel, but outside of the narrative I don’t see Bill as having a leadership personality. He gradually grows confidence throughout but it’s sort of shaky at best. Stan is far more level headed, but outside of that I forget Stan is apart of the narrative. He’s not given to do much aside from providing a part in an inciting incident but the flashbacks hardly include him as a focal point, which makes me question his inclusion in the novel at all.
In some ways, It was ahead of its time. The subjects of healing one’s inner child and generational trauma seem pervasive in modern media. Of course It is limited in some ways regarding these topics because it was written in 1980s. The language wasn’t as widely used and the culture different. In other ways, It is quite reflective of its time settings in both the 1950’s and 1980’s. There is implicit and explicit homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, domestic violence and sexual abuse, animal cruelty, child abuse and child murder. While I believe horror is a transgressive genre and not too much offends me by taking place in horror, I found myself putting the book down just because of the emotions it would evoke.
A compliant I do have is sometimes I feel like King is telling me what is going on rather than showing me. And after 600 pages of feeling that, I took a slight break because nothing quite felt present in the narrative. Maybe this was a stylistic choice representative of how as adults we are rarely present as we are children; constantly thinking about our pasts and worrying for the future. Or maybe I’m giving King too much credit.
The last 200 pages were an emotional wreck for me, although I feel like the description of the storm could have been pared down. Despite the length, some inconsistencies, and some characterization issues, I think It is a must read if you like horror, sci-fi, and a multigenerational story.
cpope9's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a weird one. Not because it's actually weird, but because it has so many ups and downs and greatness mixing with flaws. It's just so good and so annoying in so many ways.
For the first 800 pages, I was convinced I was reading the best thing the author had ever written. Some of the best writing I've ever read (at least contemporary fiction). In general, that assessment still holds, but as things ratcheted up to the climaxes (yes, multiple climaxes here), the length of the novel and the desire for conclusion finally started to hit me.
You just don't feel the book's length until right when you really shouldn't feel it. But with its final escalations, climaxes, and resolutions filling HUNDREDS of pages...it just went on too long. And while the reader is in a magical daze for the first 3/4 of the novel not even noticing the flaws because of the pacing and strengths of the storytelling, once you reach what was being built up and having it take so long to actually satisfyingly conclude, you look back and realize how much of this book could have been left out with little effect on its finality.
This book is shorter than King's "The Stand" and I think much more consistently engaging, but it also seems more wasteful and less satisfying in its length. This novel really could have been 3 or 4 books, 20+ short stories, a whole series...and at times it actually reads like it was written that way. But I couldn't point to more than a few scenes that I'd cut that wouldn't fundamentally destabilize either the plots or the themes....so not sure I can really complain a ton about the editing. Just maybe the structure of it all.
Almost all the interludes and side tales were unbelievably masterful. Like each time I read one thinking "really...do we have to go on this digression?" I was left completely captured. But so many of these digressions didn't serve a fundamental purpose to the main or overarching stories/themes. They added some nuance exploration to the broader ideas at play, but really didn't do a whole lot but add complexity and depth (which this book really didn't need any more of).
Not to mention that in these side tales you get some of the most well-written but absolutely graphic and dark depictions I've ever read in my life (one scene of sociopathic infanticide/fratricide, in particular--also legit graphic content warning for almost literally anything you can think of!!!). It made me feel like "did I really have to read that?" And sadly the answer to that question was "no, I didn't have to read that" because it really didn't add anything new or substantial to the story or themes. So that left a lot of sourness regularly.
Among other annoyances, the book suffers from some really REALLY unexplainable turns during its climax and resolution. It gets so meta and cosmic and beyond anything that you would expect...I just have no idea what the author was thinking in how it all played out. I still enjoyed it, but it just is not going to turn out anything as you'd expect. The answers to your questions are just not even close. Your best guesses as to why and what has been happening with "It" is just so left-field that the book veers from the horror genre into the depths of very cosmic sci-fi, but only briefly and without explanation (despite this twist being the culmination of the entire tale). Reminds me a bit of the ending of 2001: A Space Odessy. Just not at all where you thought it'd go and then that was it. No context or explanation or answers. Just moving on with it with everything fundamentally altered in your brain.
I also must complain about the author's choice to structure this book as two stories: one of the protagonists' initial encounters with It as children and another as they re-encounter It as adults. The novel regularly switches tales between adult story and children story, with good effect until the final escalations. At that point, the progress of the adults' story has virtually already revealed the whole story that the children's story is still going to tell. It undercuts the method. Then it also begins to switch back and forth between the two with very abrupt cliffhangers so frequently it was just whiplash. I was so pleased by this mode of storytelling and then became so frustrated with it by the end. I wonder how it would play if it was all just chronological.
And despite all of that, I still wanted more. I wanted more explanation, digressions, more everything. Not because there wasn't enough but because I still had questions, wonderings, and desire to stay in it all to keep exploring. It's unique to not really waste a whole lot of 1200 pages and still leave the reader wanting more.
The good of this book is, ignorant of its length, the size of its scope. There is SOOO much here. So many things are explored and discovered and it's all SOOOOO well-told. There are so few experiences, interactions, characters, or plot developments that don't feel so unique and encapsulating. There is just such good writing here and it's so complex and so beautifully interwoven that it's hard to pass this book with feeling awe.
It's hard to understate just how un-put-down-able this book was for me. King has had this effect on me a few times, but nothing like this. I've rarely felt this much of a need to keep reading. I didn't ever get bored or feel the reading was tedious with this (though, as noted above, it didn't always pay off to the same degree) because it was just so addicting and paced so well, despite there being so much to cover.
The characters here are so strong and unique. This book really is about a group of friends in a specific time and place having a set of dark adventures. You get to know them sooo well and, for the most part, they are consistently written. You see their flaws and strengths and fears and motivations and they all do some crazy stuff but you get it, you know them. And I think King establishes so well in this book compared to most other books I've read. Many books require sequels or a series to get to the level of depth and familiarity with its characters that King is able to get in just the first third of this book. (though it should be noted that despite the depth and nuance most characters get here, there are still some who aren't as complex as you'd expect).
This book actually makes you feel things. I don't often have emotional reactions to novels, but I felt more disgust, darkness, evil, sorrow, panic, dread, relief, vindication, and camaraderie reading this book than I have ever experienced from a single piece of media. And I felt those things so strongly from this too. This wasn't necessarily consistent across the entire novel and all the sub-stories, but many were there some intense emotional responses I had to this book. And that to me, because of its rarity, is something to laud.
The themes here are also very strong. There's so much to explore. Almost every little story, interaction, interlude, and tale is exploring some different facets of the bigger themes of fear, faith, love, community, childhood, racism, violence, abuse, etc. And it's all mostly well shown (rather than told). I wish there was more thematic consistency throughout the book as some of the thematic connections could be hundreds of pages apart, but overall there is SOOOOO much to explore here and it's mostly all very thought-provoking, moving, insightful, and useful.
And at the end of it all, this story is just so singularly unique. It creates its own world and rules and environments and it's done just so so well. It truly is unlike anything I've ever read before and I'm not sure many can match this book's uniqueness and scope.
At the end of it, this book was good--very good even. Definitely a contemporary classic and probably the best of King's novels I've read so far. But it is flawed in a way that is just so weird. So much good and so much "WTF". But such a unique story and reading experience.
TLDR; As I started the book, it was 5 stars. Up until about 2/3 of the way through: 5 stars. As things escalated to the climax: 4 stars. RIght at finishing it: 3 stars. Upon pondering everything and writing this review: back to 4 stars. I want to read this again. I want to recommend it to (some) people. I am glad to have read it and consider it great. I'm not sure whether that feeling will persist or whether I'll grow frustrated at the annoying/frustrating parts of the book as time goes on. But, for now, 4 stars.
For the first 800 pages, I was convinced I was reading the best thing the author had ever written. Some of the best writing I've ever read (at least contemporary fiction). In general, that assessment still holds, but as things ratcheted up to the climaxes (yes, multiple climaxes here), the length of the novel and the desire for conclusion finally started to hit me.
You just don't feel the book's length until right when you really shouldn't feel it. But with its final escalations, climaxes, and resolutions filling HUNDREDS of pages...it just went on too long. And while the reader is in a magical daze for the first 3/4 of the novel not even noticing the flaws because of the pacing and strengths of the storytelling, once you reach what was being built up and having it take so long to actually satisfyingly conclude, you look back and realize how much of this book could have been left out with little effect on its finality.
This book is shorter than King's "The Stand" and I think much more consistently engaging, but it also seems more wasteful and less satisfying in its length. This novel really could have been 3 or 4 books, 20+ short stories, a whole series...and at times it actually reads like it was written that way. But I couldn't point to more than a few scenes that I'd cut that wouldn't fundamentally destabilize either the plots or the themes....so not sure I can really complain a ton about the editing. Just maybe the structure of it all.
Almost all the interludes and side tales were unbelievably masterful. Like each time I read one thinking "really...do we have to go on this digression?" I was left completely captured. But so many of these digressions didn't serve a fundamental purpose to the main or overarching stories/themes. They added some nuance exploration to the broader ideas at play, but really didn't do a whole lot but add complexity and depth (which this book really didn't need any more of).
Not to mention that in these side tales you get some of the most well-written but absolutely graphic and dark depictions I've ever read in my life (one scene of sociopathic infanticide/fratricide, in particular--also legit graphic content warning for almost literally anything you can think of!!!). It made me feel like "did I really have to read that?" And sadly the answer to that question was "no, I didn't have to read that" because it really didn't add anything new or substantial to the story or themes. So that left a lot of sourness regularly.
Among other annoyances, the book suffers from some really REALLY unexplainable turns during its climax and resolution. It gets so meta and cosmic and beyond anything that you would expect...I just have no idea what the author was thinking in how it all played out. I still enjoyed it, but it just is not going to turn out anything as you'd expect. The answers to your questions are just not even close. Your best guesses as to why and what has been happening with "It" is just so left-field that the book veers from the horror genre into the depths of very cosmic sci-fi, but only briefly and without explanation (despite this twist being the culmination of the entire tale). Reminds me a bit of the ending of 2001: A Space Odessy. Just not at all where you thought it'd go and then that was it. No context or explanation or answers. Just moving on with it with everything fundamentally altered in your brain.
I also must complain about the author's choice to structure this book as two stories: one of the protagonists' initial encounters with It as children and another as they re-encounter It as adults. The novel regularly switches tales between adult story and children story, with good effect until the final escalations. At that point, the progress of the adults' story has virtually already revealed the whole story that the children's story is still going to tell. It undercuts the method. Then it also begins to switch back and forth between the two with very abrupt cliffhangers so frequently it was just whiplash. I was so pleased by this mode of storytelling and then became so frustrated with it by the end. I wonder how it would play if it was all just chronological.
And despite all of that, I still wanted more. I wanted more explanation, digressions, more everything. Not because there wasn't enough but because I still had questions, wonderings, and desire to stay in it all to keep exploring. It's unique to not really waste a whole lot of 1200 pages and still leave the reader wanting more.
The good of this book is, ignorant of its length, the size of its scope. There is SOOO much here. So many things are explored and discovered and it's all SOOOOO well-told. There are so few experiences, interactions, characters, or plot developments that don't feel so unique and encapsulating. There is just such good writing here and it's so complex and so beautifully interwoven that it's hard to pass this book with feeling awe.
It's hard to understate just how un-put-down-able this book was for me. King has had this effect on me a few times, but nothing like this. I've rarely felt this much of a need to keep reading. I didn't ever get bored or feel the reading was tedious with this (though, as noted above, it didn't always pay off to the same degree) because it was just so addicting and paced so well, despite there being so much to cover.
The characters here are so strong and unique. This book really is about a group of friends in a specific time and place having a set of dark adventures. You get to know them sooo well and, for the most part, they are consistently written. You see their flaws and strengths and fears and motivations and they all do some crazy stuff but you get it, you know them. And I think King establishes so well in this book compared to most other books I've read. Many books require sequels or a series to get to the level of depth and familiarity with its characters that King is able to get in just the first third of this book. (though it should be noted that despite the depth and nuance most characters get here, there are still some who aren't as complex as you'd expect).
This book actually makes you feel things. I don't often have emotional reactions to novels, but I felt more disgust, darkness, evil, sorrow, panic, dread, relief, vindication, and camaraderie reading this book than I have ever experienced from a single piece of media. And I felt those things so strongly from this too. This wasn't necessarily consistent across the entire novel and all the sub-stories, but many were there some intense emotional responses I had to this book. And that to me, because of its rarity, is something to laud.
The themes here are also very strong. There's so much to explore. Almost every little story, interaction, interlude, and tale is exploring some different facets of the bigger themes of fear, faith, love, community, childhood, racism, violence, abuse, etc. And it's all mostly well shown (rather than told). I wish there was more thematic consistency throughout the book as some of the thematic connections could be hundreds of pages apart, but overall there is SOOOOO much to explore here and it's mostly all very thought-provoking, moving, insightful, and useful.
And at the end of it all, this story is just so singularly unique. It creates its own world and rules and environments and it's done just so so well. It truly is unlike anything I've ever read before and I'm not sure many can match this book's uniqueness and scope.
At the end of it, this book was good--very good even. Definitely a contemporary classic and probably the best of King's novels I've read so far. But it is flawed in a way that is just so weird. So much good and so much "WTF". But such a unique story and reading experience.
TLDR; As I started the book, it was 5 stars. Up until about 2/3 of the way through: 5 stars. As things escalated to the climax: 4 stars. RIght at finishing it: 3 stars. Upon pondering everything and writing this review: back to 4 stars. I want to read this again. I want to recommend it to (some) people. I am glad to have read it and consider it great. I'm not sure whether that feeling will persist or whether I'll grow frustrated at the annoying/frustrating parts of the book as time goes on. But, for now, 4 stars.
arnya's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Sexual assault