11/22/63, Stephen King (4)
About 25% of the way into this book I commented to S that I liked the book, but I had slowed down my reading pace and wasn’t quite sure why. I definitely had an apprehensive feeling and trepidation about continuing. The thing is, Stephen King is such an amazing writer that I had to continue! I am so glad I did and I was rewarded with an excellent story. As you may know, this much-lauded book (top 10 NYT of 2011) is about a schoolteacher who finds a way to travel back in time and realizes he can potentially prevent the assassination of JFK (hence the title date), and presumably averts major disasters such as the Vietnam War. This is not a Sci-Fi book at all; it is less about the how of time travel and is much more about the ‘why’ and ‘what happens’. I think my trepidation at the beginning did stem from my previous Sci-Fi time travel reading experiences. Any good time travel book illustrates the danger of changing the past. Mr. King points out that the past is obdurate to change and puts many obstacles in the way of change. While I cringed waiting for the next shoe to drop, I was drawn into the story by the interesting characters and the clearly drawn aspects of the timeframe. The beauty of this novel is the skill of which he makes the characters and their stories so full and interesting that much of it would be a great story even without the unique time travel plot.
This is a fantastic read! I have always thought of Stephen King as a great writer and story teller but I have never been that interested in the topics he writes about. This time it is different (and it makes me want to start going back and finding other works of his in a similar vein that I might have missed). He has done a great job of using a clever plot twist to allow the reader to experience the joy of being thrown into a different time period. In this case it is a time period in the late 50's/early 60's that we may have heard about but not in the way King is able to describe it. This book definitely rates a 4 out of five for story, ambiance, and even character.
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