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Post by mattofthespurs on Nov 15, 2011 11:17:59 GMT
 "WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11/22/63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless . . . King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of Elvis and JFK, of Plymouth Fury cars and Lindy Hopping, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life - a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time. With extraordinary imaginative power, King weaves the social, political and popular culture of his baby-boom American generation into a devastating exercise in escalating suspense." Got this last Thursday and finished it yesterday and still it resounds in my head like an annoying tune pop you catch on the radio. That's not to say that this book is annoying. I would go as far to say that it's easily the best book I have read this year and the best Stephen King book I have read since "It" (excluding the Dark Tower books). Went into this one expecting a sci-fi story and came away with a superb love story. I know, not the normal fare to grace the pages of this vault but there you go. King's writing is at it's imperious best and immerses the reader so thoroughly that for two nights last week I had dreams set in the late 1950's. As usual King drops in enough cliff hangers throughout the book which makes it hard to put down and his characters are so richly drawn that I genuinely feared for their fate despite the fact that they were nothing more than words on a page. His description of his characters are so thin I wonder how an earth I manage to get images of them in my mind but that's King's best trick. The description comes in dribs and drabs and you get to know the characters as you would a real person, the characterisation builds up gradually. As authors go when King is on top form there is no one to better him and this book is King in top form. I loved every single page. |
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Post by dem on Nov 15, 2011 16:20:08 GMT
Glad you had such a good time with it, matt, and thanks for such an enthusiastic review. As yet i've only read one of the four novella's in Full Dark, No Stars ( Big Driver, 130 pages of pure page-turner) but that already decided me that i should go for 11.22,63.. you just decided me some more. Have you read his short baseball-mystery novel, Blockade Billy? wasn't expecting to get into that at all, finished it in one hit. The man is on a roll  |
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Post by mattofthespurs on Nov 15, 2011 18:51:24 GMT
Glad you had such a good time with it, matt, and thanks for such an enthusiastic review. As yet i've only read one of the four novella's in Full Dark, No Stars ( Big Driver, 130 pages of pure page-turner) but that already decided me that i should go for 11.22,63.. you just decided me some more. Have you read his short baseball-mystery novel, Blockade Billy? wasn't expecting to get into that at all, finished it in one hit. The man is on a roll Yes Sir! Read "Blockade Billy" in one sitting. Might be a time to revist it. Felt alot like a "Colorado Kid" type of book. I enjoyed both. "Full Dark, No Stars" is good but feels a little bit mean spirited to me. In comparison 11.22.63 is soooooo much better it's not even on the same scale. |
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Post by erebus on Apr 14, 2012 17:18:57 GMT
Thought I would get bogged down with this one but I breezed through it. It was superb.
The subject matter was something that didn't interest me in the slightest ie the assassination and old American history etc. But don't let that derail you this here is a damn good read and worth a week or so of your time.
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