I don't like Stephen King. His books are a little too gruesome and freaky for me. Granted, I think the only book I read all the way through was Carrie, but that was gruesome enough to turn me off of King for life. But I know what It is about, and that is not for me. However, 11/22/63 has been on my list to read for a while because I enjoy reading, watching, and learning about the Kennedy assassination, and a book that purports to stop Lee Harvey Oswald sounded brilliant to me.
However, I purchased it over five years ago, after my dad told me how great it was and have only just gotten to it. I think the length really intimidated me: the length and the fact that it is written by Stephen King. But I saw it on my shelf the other day and said, this is it. I'm going to read it. So I did.
First of all, for an incredibly long novel, it reads very fast. I started the book on Wednesday and finished on the following Tuesday, just reading in hour long increments as I had time. When reading, I found that the chapters flew by, partially helped by the break up of chapters into sub-chapters. I always find that when you have breaks in long chapters, it makes the chapters seem smaller and more manageable. I don't think I ever went more than five pages without a break in the scene, and that helped to keep things moving.
King also just keeps the action moving. The characters aren't given much time to just sit and think; things are moving and changing at a rapid pace and readers have to keep reading in order to keep up with the plot. I greatly appreciate that because it meant I was constantly engaged in what was happening.
I enjoyed Jake as a main character. He reads, writes, and teaches kids to enjoy reading and writing, and I find that brilliant in a character. He definitely becomes an amateur detective of sorts when Al asks him to take over, and I was surprised by how well he handles this new task. Somehow, his literature and language background prepares him perfectly to jump boldly into this "new" world and do exactly what he means to do. Even when the past is throwing every obstacle at him, he manages to scrape by with grace, dignity, and bravery, and it almost seems like he never falls or falters, even though it sounds like he should have. He is pretty much the perfect hero, and that I didn't enjoy. I'm not saying it should have been harder for him because it was plenty hard, but even when it was plenty hard, Jake always knew exactly what to do, and he never had an issue coming up with the perfect plan or perfect way around every obstacle. That was too unrealistic, I found.
I did not like the Sadie aspect of the book. I understand this as the mortal flaw for Jake, and I understand why King had to include her, but I certainly did not like her or her involvement in the book. She just drops in, Jake says, I don't love her, but she's a nice friend, until all of the sudden she's the center of his world and he can't look past her to see the bigger picture. That drives me a little crazy, especially in the center of the story when I felt Jake could have been doing a lot more useful things but was too distracted. However, I do understand and I get that without Sadie, the book would be missing an important aspect.
I still don't know how to feel about the ending. I get why it ended the way it did. But I don't think I like it. It was disappointing, and yet King manages to make the disappointing ending satisfying, which is nice. It does almost feel like the whole book becomes a waste, though, and I'm not sure what to make of that feeling.
I'm very interested to see how Hulu turned this into a series. I'd really like to see what they make of it, how they portray the characters and the world, and if anything is changed from the book.
I can't say that I like Stephen King. I appreciate him as an author, fully acknowledging that this man has incredible talent, but his books are not for me. However, this is one I'll gladly keep on my shelf and maybe return to sometime in the future.
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