Reviews with content warning for Terminal illness - It

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.

Content Warnings

itsmeyseniab's review against another edition

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dark 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? It's complicated

2.5

First things first, I just need to acknowledge that I devoted four months to reading this book. That's four months of my life I'll never get back.

I honestly think this book is incredibly overhyped: first of all, this is entirely too long. I think that King and his readers would've benefitted if this was written as a duology, with the first novel being form the perspective of when they were children and the second being when they were adults (basically like what they did with the newer film adaptations). I felt way more interested in the chapters that were from when they were children and encountering "It" for the first time, but it just got to be really repetitive and kind of confusing to follow via audiobook at times.

Speaking of the children encountering "It"... I was very disappointed by the lack of Pennywise in this novel. I understand that it was meant to showcase how Derry was the true monster, and that the scariest evils are the ones hidden in plain sight (ie. the bullies in the town, Beverly's dad - hell basically all the adults in the town - and the ideals they represented) but this is sold as a "monster" book so... where he at?

Lastly, this book is HARMFUL. As a cisgender, straight white male, Stephen King is WAYYYYY too comfortable with the use of racial, homophobic, misogynistic and Anti-Semitic slurs. The use of this offensive language added nothing to the narrative in my opinion and none of the characters learned from their mistakes or were punished for the use of the slurs. It felt... personal. Now I am not someone who knows about King personally, or the remarks he has made or his beliefs, but it came across as an excuse to use that language for the sake of using it (before you come in saying "he was just showcasing the time period, etc." he can get that point across without using the n word 8 times in a sentence on every other page). Another big issue that I had was how he sexualized Beverly (our only female main character, might I add) in both her adolescence and adulthood. He talked about her breasts more than her as a person. It was ridiculous. Also don't even get me started on that sex scene between all the kids at the end of the book.... WHY. WHAT PURPOSE DID THAT SERVE?

This is considered a classic for no reason, I said what I said.

Content Warnings

ratrug's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.0

My god this is a bloody tome. If you haven’t read any other King books I would recommend doing so before you start this because it’s a bloody long book if you don’t like his writing style. I enjoyed it but it was a bit of a slog at times, but King used the words he needed to say what he wanted to say

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