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A review by dead_vole_jumpscare
It by Stephen King
2.25
sooo many mixed thoughts (what other kind?) about this book.
1. every post that makes fun of how dude authors pay a weird amount of attention to describing what boobs are doing when they write women characters is actually referring to stephen king.
2. i don't think he pulls off the white-guy-writing-racism thing very well at all, considering most of the racism comes in the form of gratuitous usage of slurs that don't really add much to the plot, if anything. also, he's like "here! have a black character!" and you're like ok maybe this racist setting will be used in a not-racist way, but then mike feels like not completely a part of the losers club andhis storyline ending is very unsatisfying .
3. the same thing for homophobia, misogyny, antisemitism, and generally other forms of oppression.
4. the characters. out of all of them only ben and mike are likable (and mike's characterization feels flat, idk), and i think - controversial opinion - that main characters should almost always be likable - but! here's the catch: they should also be dislikable. i wanna read a story where the main character is hard to like but you do anyway, rather than one where you CAN'T like the character.
(side note: in my head beverly marsh is [redacted] (sorry [redacted]) and bill denbrough is jonathan from stranger things and that last one especially just feels right.)
5. it's long. i listened to the audiobook so i actually didn't really mind the length and the drawn-out tension, but i can totally see how reading it would be so tiring. i would probably actually recommend the audio form specifically rather than written (IF i was recommending it, which i'm not) because the tiny details and superfluous ministories or bits of info are actually more charming than frustrating. then again, i was reading this book very idly, which probably played a part in my indifference to its length.
6.the sex scene???? it was both INCREDIBLY uncomfy and HIGHLY unrealistic, plus it was a stupid plot point. "oh nooo we're doomed the only way we'll live is if you, token girl, have sex with all of us" what the actual fuck.
so far all of these thoughts have been bad but i said i had mixed thoughts, which i do, mainly because the story is intriguing if you can get past the length. i do find myself wanting to know what happens next a lot, and personally i actually likedthe ending including its unexplained parts because having them all go separate ways and there isn't a happily ever after but there also isn't a then everyone died and sadness and doom everywhere seems like the ending that was right for the story . i would probably say that reading this made me not buy into all the hype king gets, but not completely write (ha) him off either.
1. every post that makes fun of how dude authors pay a weird amount of attention to describing what boobs are doing when they write women characters is actually referring to stephen king.
2. i don't think he pulls off the white-guy-writing-racism thing very well at all, considering most of the racism comes in the form of gratuitous usage of slurs that don't really add much to the plot, if anything. also, he's like "here! have a black character!" and you're like ok maybe this racist setting will be used in a not-racist way, but then mike feels like not completely a part of the losers club and
3. the same thing for homophobia, misogyny, antisemitism, and generally other forms of oppression.
4. the characters. out of all of them only ben and mike are likable (and mike's characterization feels flat, idk), and i think - controversial opinion - that main characters should almost always be likable - but! here's the catch: they should also be dislikable. i wanna read a story where the main character is hard to like but you do anyway, rather than one where you CAN'T like the character.
(side note: in my head beverly marsh is [redacted] (sorry [redacted]) and bill denbrough is jonathan from stranger things and that last one especially just feels right.)
5. it's long. i listened to the audiobook so i actually didn't really mind the length and the drawn-out tension, but i can totally see how reading it would be so tiring. i would probably actually recommend the audio form specifically rather than written (IF i was recommending it, which i'm not) because the tiny details and superfluous ministories or bits of info are actually more charming than frustrating. then again, i was reading this book very idly, which probably played a part in my indifference to its length.
6.
so far all of these thoughts have been bad but i said i had mixed thoughts, which i do, mainly because the story is intriguing if you can get past the length. i do find myself wanting to know what happens next a lot, and personally i actually liked