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11/22/63

4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 · rating details · 105,223 ratings · 16,295 reviews

If you had the chance to change the course of history, would you? Would the consequences be what you hoped?

Jake Epping 35 teaches high school English in Lisbon Falls, Maine, and cries reading the brain-damaged janitor's story of childhood Halloween massacre by their drunken father. On his deathbed, pal Al divulges a secret portal to 1958 in his diner back pantry, and enlis...more

Hardcover, Scribner, 849 pages

Published November 8th 2011 by Simon & Schuster

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The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

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Mar 05, 2012 Jeanette rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, america, cultural-and-social-commentary, five-star-fiction, science-fiction, to-be-read-again

Thank you, Steve. You were wrong all those years ago when you said you weren't very good at writing about love and intimacy. The love story here is full of honesty and tenderness. When I got to the last couple of pages, I was crying so hard I couldn't read.

11/22/63 is a supernatural, quasi-historical, philosophical, science-fiction love story.
If you're avoiding it because you think Stephen King only writes horror, please reconsider. There's no horror here, aside from a couple of mild gross-out...more

448 likes · like · see review

Feb 28, 2012 ★ Jess marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own

Look at the amount of pages in this book.
Look at the amount of pages in Under The Dome.
Check the date this book is published.
Check the date Under The Dome was published.

*eyetwitch*

description

Real.

410 likes · like · see review

Apr 04, 2012 Nataliya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Stephen King fans and history lovers

Shelves: stephen-king, 2012-reads, favorites

Go ahead, book snobs. Proclaim haughtily that Stephen King is not Literature. I shall retort with a Pratchett quote, "Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book." And nobody argues with Sir Terry.

(Since 'a picture is worth a thousand words', the above is a three-thousand-words summary of this book. Impressive, no? And also - dancing is life.)

As you probably guessed from the not-too-spoiler-sensitive title, 11/22/63 is a book about time travel. My love for it is an exception r...more Go ahead, book snobs. Proclaim haughtily that Stephen King is not Literature. I shall retort with a Pratchett quote, "Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book." And nobody argues with Sir Terry.

(Since 'a picture is worth a thousand words', the above is a three-thousand-words summary of this book. Impressive, no? And also - dancing is life.)

As you probably guessed from the not-too-spoiler-sensitive title, 11/22/63 is a book about time travel. My love for it is an exception rather than a rule - you see, I am not usually a fan of the Grandfather paradox. Speaking of which:

“Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?"
He stared at me, baffled. "Why the fuck would you do that?”

As the title proceeds to shamelessly tells us, the book deals with the assassination of John F. Kennedy (and if the title fails to convey the message, then hopefully you - like yours truly - have Google-pedia'd it. Hey, don't judge, I was born in Eastern Europe). Anyway, it's another of Stephen King's 'what if?' situations. What if you could go through a 'rabbit-hole' to the past? Would you try to change history for the better, would you try to right the wrongs? Well, who wouldn't??? And so Jake Epping, an English teacher, sets out to spend half a decade in the past to prevent the assassination of JFK (and to figure out whether Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed the lone gunman that day, despite all the conspiracy theories).

"As I flipped to the back, I kept seeing that double take. And the grin. A sense of humor; a sense of the absurd. The man in the sixth-floor window of the Book Depository had neither. Oswald had proved it time and again, and such a man had no business changing history."

** What if their lives had never intersected?**

“Even people capable of living in the past don't really know what the future holds.”

The question is - what would have happened had JFK survived the assassination that day in Dallas? Would we still have Vietnam War, race riots, and Martin Luther King's death? Could the lives of many innocent people be spared? Could JFK lead the country into a better future? Jake believes so. But what if the past resists the change? What is the price of changing the past?

"The past is obdurate for the same reason a turtle’s shell is obdurate: because the living flesh inside is tender and defenseless."

This book again dispels the long-believed but mistaken axiom that Stephen King is a "horror writer" - of a spook and startle variety. No, in the traditional sense he is not. He knows that the true monsters are those that live inside every one of us (and, ahem, occasionally in Derry, Maine). He has created his own brand of psychological suspense - with the brilliant and scary insight into the minds of average everyday people (who all have some darkness inside them and a skeleton or two in the closet - sometimes quite literally) superimposed onto the masterful description of small towns themselves (eerily resembling sentient living creatures, determined to hold on to their dark secrets). (*) And we get plenty of these in this book, as Jake's quest to prevent that fateful shot in November in Dallas takes him along the way to the small towns of Derry, Maine and Jodie, Texas.

* I have an irrational fear of living in a small town, thanks to Stephen King. What if it turns out to be another Derry or Castle Rock?! *shudder*

(By the way, this trip to the past gives plenty of deeeeee-licious 'Easter Eggs' to King's Constant Readers. We see little echoes from Pennywise the Clown era in Derry, meet our favorite 1958 Plymouth Fury ( Hellllloooo there, Christine! ), and even get a nod to A Wizard and Glass with Takuro Spirit).

“On that gray street, with the smell of industrial smokes in the air and the afternoon bleeding away to evening, downtown Derry looked only marginally more charming than a dead hooker in a church pew.”

Derry of 1958 (right after the terrifying events of IT) is particularly repulsive and sinister. It's a small wonder Jake is able to continue his quest after starting in such an ominous place. But even there King manages to include some unexpected beauty - just remember Richie and Bevvy dancing.

And the reverse applies to the idyllic town of Jodie in which Jake is finally able to feel that he actually LIVES in the past. Deep down under the beauty and quaintness lies the ugly little reality. And the same remains true for the Land of Ago, the glorious past of absent airport security, no cholesterol warnings, and everyone happily puffing their way to lung cancers. The 1950s-60s are described with sweetness and nostalgia, but King never hesitates to bluntly remind the reader that the past has teeth and it's not afraid to bite.

King is an excellent writer and an amazing storyteller. His writing is effortless and natural, the characterization is apt and memorable, and the dialogue superb and real-sounding. I truly felt for Jake during each step of his journey. I loved how Oswald was described as not a villain or a nutcase but a flawed broken little man who stumbled into the middle of events that changed history. The other characters - Sadie, Deke, Ellie, Frank Dunning - were so well-written that I could feel them come to life (which actually can be a scary statement when the world of sai King is concerned). The story, despite its sizable length, was flowing along and never lost my attention. And his slow build-up of the sense of suspense and doom - think The Yellow Card Man (*) and jimla and the 'harmonizing past' - was just enough to keep me on the edge of my seat throughout the book.
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Pardon me for using this moth-eaten cliche, but Stephen King is like good wine - his writing gets better and better as he ages. Some may consider The Stand his masterpiece (to his dismay - who wants to think he's already reached the peak of his writing career three decades ago???), but I think this book may be it.

"Is there any phrase more ominous than you need to see exactly what you’ve done? I couldn’t think of one offhand."

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5 stars without hesitation for this excellent impossible-to-put-down book. Sai King, I will continue to be your Constant Reader for hopefully many more years to come, Capital-L Literature or not.

"If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples."

(less)

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Jan 09, 2012 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-kindle, 2012, reviewed

Hi, my name is Jake Epping and I’m a dull high school English teacher who has decided to go back in time to prevent JFK from being assassinated. I’ve decided to do this primarily because a fat man who serves me 53 year-old cheeseburgers (with whom I share only a vague casual acquaintance) has told me that I should. There is no other real reason for me to being doing this. There really isn’t. Once I’m there, I will also risk my life to save a bunch of other people that I barely know because I wan...more Hi, my name is Jake Epping and I’m a dull high school English teacher who has decided to go back in time to prevent JFK from being assassinated. I’ve decided to do this primarily because a fat man who serves me 53 year-old cheeseburgers (with whom I share only a vague casual acquaintance) has told me that I should. There is no other real reason for me to being doing this. There really isn’t. Once I’m there, I will also risk my life to save a bunch of other people that I barely know because I want to demonstrate how amazingly selfless I am. It is important to me that I am well-liked. I will fuck up several times, but that is no problem because I have no life and therefore I will simply go back in time again and repeat the experience until I get things right. At some point along the way, I will fall in love with an 80 year-old woman. But don’t worry!—when I go back in time, she’s 27. So that’s no problem, either.

Anyway, once I (view spoiler), I will nonetheless accept it as true and simply go back a-fucking-GAIN just to undo what I spent 800 pages doing.

And that is my story.

Except actually it isn’t. Now that I’ve returned more or less permanently to the back-to-normal present, I have decided to hunt down my former lover like the psychopath that I am and dance with her one last time. In my head, it’s oh-so-sweet and will bring a tear to your eye. But in your sane reality, it will probably have the effect of making you want to vomit—cuz she’s EIGHTY. It’s like that scene in Ghost where Sam uses Oda Mae’s body to put the moves on Molly. We get that it’s Patrick Swayze in spirit, but somehow we can’t let go of the knowledge that it’s actually Whoopi Goldberg who’s feeling up Demi Moore.(less)

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Mar 15, 2012 Meg ♥ rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, z-2012-reads, favs

I'll be honest here. It's really rare that I get through a book over 500 pages, let alone 700 (Nook pages). It's also true that I have never read a single thing from Mr. King until now. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe his books intimidated me, because when I was younger everyone was always talking to me about how his books were so long, and blah blah. Anyway, I am proud to say that 11/22/63 was my first book read by Stephen King. I hear it's so much different than his other work, but I also haven't met...more
I'll be honest here. It's really rare that I get through a book over 500 pages, let alone 700 (Nook pages). It's also true that I have never read a single thing from Mr. King until now. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe his books intimidated me, because when I was younger everyone was always talking to me about how his books were so long, and blah blah. Anyway, I am proud to say that 11/22/63 was my first book read by Stephen King. I hear it's so much different than his other work, but I also haven't met a single person that didn't love it. I read this book because everybody and their brother was recommending it to me as a "must read". I'm also not a big historical fiction fan, and didn't know how much I would enjoy reading about 20 years before my birth. I had nothing to worry about.

Here is a book that you never want to end, yet you do want it to end, because you need to know what is going to happen. King introduces us to a man named Jake who insists that he is not emotionless despite the fact that he doesn't cry often. I can relate to him right off the bat. Not a big crier, but I definitely feel emotions on a huge level. Jake is sent back to 1963 with a plan made up by a guy named Al who owns a local diner, and has the "rabbit hole" which is how they travel back in time. At first his mission is just to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating JFK, but then little things pop up here and there making him consider a few new things that need to be changed. I'm not going into any more detail than that, because I don't want to give away one single thing in this brilliant novel. Fans of his story "It" may be excited to know he revisits the town of Derry, Maine, where "It" was located.

The excitement and suspense in this book were astonishing. I held my breath in anticipation of certain things Jake had to do, and then some twist would come out of left field, and I would continue reading in awe. There were also several sighs of relief and a couple of cute moments involving Jake's romance that just made me say "aww".

I do feel like there were a rough 100ish pages that dragged on somewhere in the middle, and the book may have benefited by taking out a few things, but obviously I'm no expert. That's just my opinion. Again, this may have also been just something I was feeling, because I was very impatient and really wanting to know how this book would end. Some people didn't like the ending, but I loved it!

In the afterword King discusses his research a bit. You can most definitely tell that a lot of research and thought went into this novel. The descriptions are vivid and when I say you are really transported back to the 60's I mean it. You will feel it.

11/22/63 is a truly memorable, wonderfully written book that I have already recommended to several family members and friends, and I will continue to recommend for years to come. This is another of King's books that I could see as a film, too. If you are wanting to try a Stephen King book, but don't know if you will like all the horror, read this! It is not like that at all.(less)

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Apr 07, 2012 Blythe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who doesn't like King's scary books, and really anyone in general... Seriously, read this!

Shelves: favorites, read-reviewed, hand-me-some-tissues, 6-stars, didn-t-see-that-coming, i-e-i-will-always-love-you, cried-my-eyes-out, exceeded-my-expectations

*sigh*... I'm so upset that it's over... You got me at the ending there, Stephen. You really, truly got me. What can I possibly say about this wonderful, beautiful book? That it's wonderful and beautiful? No. That's no where near enough praise. This book made it up to my top 3 favorites list by King (placing at #3) and is probably my favorite book of 2011 (if not tied with Shutter Island). Reading this book, I was so worried about what the ending would be (because, let's be honest here, we know...more

161 likes · like · see review

Apr 27, 2013 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-reads, mystery-thriller, arc, historical-fiction, time-travel

Listen to an excerpt from Stephen King's 11/22/63 audiobook, narrated by Craig Wasson.
A grandmaster of storytelling, the Dickens of modern times is back with another top read.
He's back with no Here's Johnny! but certainly here's Lee Oswald! a brutal husband and a father.
The stage is set the focal time 22nd November 1963, enter the main protagonist Jake Epping soon to be known as George Amberson down the Alice in Wonderland Rabbit Hole, the mission to rewrite history. What Jake undertakes has d...more Listen to an excerpt from Stephen King's 11/22/63 audiobook, narrated by Craig Wasson.
A grandmaster of storytelling, the Dickens of modern times is back with another top read.
He's back with no Here's Johnny! but certainly here's Lee Oswald! a brutal husband and a father.
The stage is set the focal time 22nd November 1963, enter the main protagonist Jake Epping soon to be known as George Amberson down the Alice in Wonderland Rabbit Hole, the mission to rewrite history. What Jake undertakes has deeper impact on himself than he could wish.

You get the feel from this novel that the 1960's was a lovely era, it had a feel of innocence in the air, boys with flattop crew cuts, girls with ponytails and shin length poodle skirts. Jitterbugging and lindyhopping. There is fully flavored Root beer and Catcher in The Rye was banned from school libraries.
Jack travels to 1958 and starts his new life with taking up the position of an English teacher in a school that he finds he really loves teaching at and meets people that are to change his future. For a man who has in the past hardly shed a tear he is to learn many new emotions and he can't quite understand how to deal with those responsible for them. In the course of preventing the Kennedy assassination he finds himself with a few obstacles. He also tries to undo another history of a friend from his present, one of the murderous kind. Feel immersed and enjoy a heart warming story of humanness.

The beauty and skill of Stephen King's writing is he brings to the table ordinary individuals and pitches them against adversity, some are triumphant others not. The age old battle of good versus evil he does so well, the master conjurer of nightmares, the writer of redemption and darkness of the heart. He writes the character driven story well and don't think he's lost his swagger as he has plenty of steam in his tank and proves it year by year. This is not a king novel in the way as The Shining was a horror novel but is a King novel in that he writes so well with the darkness of heart as a key player. He keeps turning out good stories.
Its a hard market the short story category but King always seems to revive the art of Short story telling. Full Dark No Stars by King done so well in 2010 and this year I am sure 11.22.63 as a novel is to lead as the best of 2011.

"If you ever wanted to change the world, this is your chance. Save Kennedy, save his brother. Save Martin Luther King. Stop the race riots. Stop Vietnam, maybe' he leaned forward. 'Get rid of one wretched waif, buddy and you could save millions of lives."

"Money comes back. It stays no matter how many times you use the rabbit-hole."

"life turns on a dime, and when it does, it turns fast."

"The Cullums were at one end of the seesaw; the Oswalds were at the other. And Jake Epping, also known as George Amberson? He was the tipping point."

"There's an old saying: peek not through a knothole, lest ye be vexed. Was there ever a bigger knothole in human history than the Internet?"

My review also here plus Stephen King on video interview

(less)

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Dec 02, 2011 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, time-mower-adventures, time-travel, sci-fi

Adventures in Time Mowing

Dallas, Texas
11/22/63

“Hey, you just appeared out of nowhere! How did you do that? And is that a laptop melted onto a lawn mower?”

“Yeah. See there was this lightning strike and now I can use my time mower to visit the past and …. Wait a second. If you’re from 1963, how did you know what a laptop is? Oh, shit! You’re a time traveler, too?”

“Yes, I am. What year are you from?”

“2011. My name’s Kemper.”

“No way! I’m from 2011, too. My name is George Amberson. I mean, it’s reall...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been revised and can now be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.

Wrist-spraining goodness. Just about as good as it gets.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

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Mar 19, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it 5 of 5 stars

You may ask yourself how in the world did a wife beating, mental degenerate, and multiple country defecting (USA, RUSSIA and an attempt at Cuba) little shit like this

kill the charismatic, handsome war hero, and most powerful man in the world.

It doesn't make any sense. It never has made any sense. Oswald just does not fit the profile for a guy that could pull off an assassination of this magnitude. He's a semi-educated hillbilly, but he's surprisingly crafty."

Kennedy provided a golden opportuni...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What did I think? I think I lost a weekend and there is no way to go back in time to get it because I don't know where the rabbit hole is! But would I? Would I change having read this book? No way!

I was a huge Stephen King fan in high school and gobbled up all of his books. Until ... they went from cool weird to over-the-top weird. Suddenly coke machines were your worst enemy and there seemed to be a less emotional element mixed with the macabre (think Pet Cematary) and it was just a bunch of wo...more

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Mar 03, 2011 Mitchel Broussard marked it as to-read

Shelves: sci-fi, stephen-king, time-travel, thriller-suspense

Is it just me or is this one missing the most obvious release date tie in ever?

63 likes · like · see review

Dec 14, 2011 K. A. O'Neil rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fuck-this-book

I'm a reluctant fan of Stephen King. But this book was terrible.

The main guy is a teacher.

EVERY POSSIBLE CLICHE ABOUT TEACHERS is in this book. As in:

1. Meticulously correcting oral grammar
2. Catching some kids drinking at the sock hop, but letting them off easy after a heartfelt talk about actions and consequences
3. Directing a play and thereby enabling the town's best football player to realize his intellectual strengths

and on and on.

There are also a series of contrived plot twists. For examp...more

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Nov 26, 2011 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

* Roger Ebert wrote of the movie Pearl Harbor that it "is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle." The paraphrase for King's book is a natural: it's a 200-page novel squeezed into 800 pages, about how on November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated the world's most powerful love affair. Or at least tries to. You'll have to see for yourself how it all turns out.

* Being from Dallas, I'm tempted...more

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Dec 19, 2011 Sarah Kathryn rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Real spoilers are inside "spoiler" tags. Things that tell a little about the content that I would have appreciated hearing before committing to this behemoth are not. You've been warned.

This is my first Stephen King read. I'm not a horror fan, but I love a good alternate history, and I figured that a story of a man who goes back in time to stop Kennedy's assassination could be one of those. It isn't. Not the biggest hurdle, because this could still have been an enjoyable read if it had been abou...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Dan Schwent rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: homework-from-the-ladies, 2013

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When a dying friend shows him a portal to 1958 in the back of his diner, Jake Epping finds himself venturing in the past with one goal in mind: Stopping Lee Harvey Oswald! But did Oswald do it? And can Jake stop him even if he did fire the shot that killed JFK?

Once I got over Stephen King's throbbing erection for the late 1950's/early 1960's, I enjoyed this book immensely. Here's how it all went down.

Jake's friend, an old diner owner, shows him a portal back to 1958. Each trip is like the first...more When a dying friend shows him a portal to 1958 in the back of his diner, Jake Epping finds himself venturing in the past with one goal in mind: Stopping Lee Harvey Oswald! But did Oswald do it? And can Jake stop him even if he did fire the shot that killed JFK?

Once I got over Stephen King's throbbing erection for the late 1950's/early 1960's, I enjoyed this book immensely. Here's how it all went down.

Jake's friend, an old diner owner, shows him a portal back to 1958. Each trip is like the first trip, meaning Al has been buying the same 12 pounds of ground beef at 1958 prices for years. Al wants Jake to stop the Kennedy assassination, something Al had been planning on doing until cancer laid him low. Jake gets railroaded into doing it and finds himself blundering around after Lee Harvey Oswald until 1963.

Yeah, it didn't sound that exciting to me either at first but I was hooked right away. Stephen King is criminally underrated as a writer, mostly because he writes mammoth best sellers more often than I clean my downstairs bathroom. Frequency aside, he can write the shit out of things. I had no trouble buying Jake's romance with Sadie, nor his reluctance to kill Oswald without being sure he was guilty, nor the idea that the past doesn't want to be changed. When the big moment came, I felt like the entire universe was at jeopardy, much like I did in The Dark Tower.

Speaking of The Dark Tower, there are Stephen King Easter eggs in abundance, like Jake meeting a certain two children in Derry, to the Takura Spirit he sees by the road late in the tale. Remembered a day after reviewing: There's also a Jim Thompson reference in that there's a sign outside Jodie reading Pop. 1280. I even wrote that on a post-it but forgot about it during the intitial review writing process.

I like the way King handled time travel, especially this exchange between Jake and Al, which I'm paraphrasing:
"What if you went back in time and killed your own grandfather?"
"Why the fuck would you do that?"
Another time travel bit I really liked was Jake had to take era-appropriate money with him. A lot of time travel stories neglect that.

While I was reading this, my girlfriend, who forcibly recommended the book to me, asked what I would do with a time portal that functioned like this one, returning two minutes after you left no matter how much time you spent in the past. I told her I'd sneak away and take long naps or go on reading vacations for a week or two of subjective time. That's one way to get some serious reading done.

I did have a few complaints, though. Jake does some awfully conspicuous things in the past for a guy who's trying to fly under the radar. Also, the aforementioned boner for JFK and his era. I have to think King was looking at the 50's and 60's through rose colored glasses. Food and drink tasting better in the past? Sounds like nostalgia to me.

All in all, this was the shortest 900 page book I've ever read and one hell of a read. 4 stars, leaning heavily toward five. I do not envy whichever book I read after this one.(less)

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Nov 29, 2012 Nandakishore Varma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen King is not a literary writer. In fact, in literary circles, I am afraid that he may not be considered even a good writer. I am almost certain that he is not going to win the Nobel Prize for literature; even the Booker and Pulitzer also seems unlikely to come to him.

Who cares? Because King is the last of that dying breed: the storyteller. The spirit that moves in him is the same which animated the stone-age shaman as he narrated fascinating, fantastic, bloodcurdling, raunchy and sentimen...more

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Nov 24, 2011 Dan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Frustrating, lazy, stupidly plotted, and about two-thirds longer than it should have been. It's not so much an alternate history of the JFK assassination -- it's more a story of a teacher who travels from 2011 to 1958 so he can ... become a teacher? Oh, and probably kill Oswald, if he gets around to it. What a waste of time travel.

The main character's motivation for saving JFK (i.e., the whole fucking plot) is sketchy at best. He (Jake) admits he's not into politics, and SK barely shows him thi...more Frustrating, lazy, stupidly plotted, and about two-thirds longer than it should have been. It's not so much an alternate history of the JFK assassination -- it's more a story of a teacher who travels from 2011 to 1958 so he can ... become a teacher? Oh, and probably kill Oswald, if he gets around to it. What a waste of time travel.

The main character's motivation for saving JFK (i.e., the whole fucking plot) is sketchy at best. He (Jake) admits he's not into politics, and SK barely shows him thinking one way or another about Kennedy. You'd think if you're going to go through a goddam time portal and possibly be killed or imprisoned trying to save a man, you'd at least have feelings about him. The motivation is less about saving Kennedy and more about killing Oswald because he's a loser unworthy of changing history.

Worst of all: it's not even his plan. It's someone else's plan. A character he barely knows has gone to the trouble of coming up with a LH Oswald assassination plot, helpfully describing everything into a notebook. When this guy finds he's physically unable to finish the job, he enlists Jake, our hero, to finish it for him -- again, two people who know each other only slightly. This isn't how people act. This isn't even how fictional characters act. This is how characters act when they're being moved around by necessity to fulfill plot points. And for someone who knows he's going to travel back in time to a specific point in history, Jake has no research of his own about the period beyond pop music and some vague knowledge of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I'd think he'd want to bone up a bit beforehand.

Whole chunks of the book can go directly into the trash. King spends stretches of the novel describing how the main character becomes an inspiring drama teacher at his Texas high school. Pointless and boring. It's like Mr. Holland's Opus grafted into the middle. The first part of the book is pure fan-service, where the main character goes back in time to Derry, Maine, to save a friend from seeing his family murdered. It has fuck-all to do with the rest of the book -- a flimsy excuse for King and fans to hang around in post-"It" Derry for a while, even meeting some characters and shooting the shit about that book's plot for a while. But oddly it's probably the most genuine and most interesting section. If revised judiciously, he could've written a smoking hot 250-page book instead of a bloated 850-page one.

I knew once the main character got partial amnesia and knew he'd gone back in time to kill someone but plum forgot who, and plum forgot that he had some guy's notebook detailing exactly who and how and why, then just as mysteriously began to remember again, that there was no way I was going to leave this book happy. That's some soap opera bullshit right there.

The rest of the characters are broad and familiar stereotypes, but that's Stephen King for you.

I have a soft spot for SK. I read this one because it's getting great reviews. I didn't see it. Maybe it's just me. Rant over.(less)

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Jan 01, 2012 Trudi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, stephen-king, time-travel, fantastical-speculative, 2011-reads, science-fiction, love-the-premise, a-sense-of-place, books-i-want-to-marry, my-heart-beats-for-you, my-desert-island, prose-that-sings, judge-a-book-by-its-cover, modern-lit

All hail the King! Talk about ending the reading year of 2011 on a high note. Review to follow. Happy New Year everyone!

I may be a mad dog fan of Stephen King, but that doesn’t mean everything he writes gets me foaming at the mouth. Over the years there have been disappointments -- but this book is not one of them. I would rank King’s foray into time travel and historical fiction as a rousing, emotional, unforgettable success for in it he is doing what King does when writing at his absolute bes...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

I had just sat down to begin this review on my laptop when the doorbell went. I wasn't expecting anyone. It was probably going to be one of those pitiful door to door salesmen trying to get me to buy a dishcloth for a fiver. They make me feel so bad. But it wasn't. I opened the door and looked at myself. It was me.

"Huh, what? " I said. "You're… you're…"

"Yeah, that's right. I'm you. Sorry about that. Like looking in a mirror, isn't it? But worse!"

"Uh… what's goin' on ?" This was bad, I was quotin...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Rick Urban rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's no mystery that I am a rabid King fan, and have been ever since I read Salem's Lot way back in 1975. Each new book holds the promise of another singularly well-told tale filled with suspense, terror, and a sardonic wit. Does he have his duds? Absolutely...witness The Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, and Dreamcatcher, for example. At his worst, he's overly didactic, infantile, and runs his patented catch phrases into the ground. But in his best works, like Pet Sematary, Dolores Claiborne and Th...more

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Dec 01, 2011 Dem rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My first Stephen King Novel and my last. This type of book is not for me. I was really looking forward to this story as I was really taken by the premise of this story because the Kennedy Assassination has always interested me but sadly after about 200 pages of this story found out this is just not for me and was not the story I had thought I was going to read.

I really felt this book would have benefited with being about 40% shorter as it is much too long and the story seemed to ramble on and on...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Koeeoaddi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, audiobook

4.5

30 CDs. Phew.

The conventional wisdom is that the love story carries this book, but I didn't think so. The half star deduction was for our hero's screamingly dull love interest and some draggy parts in the middle where he bounced back and forth between bird dogging Lee Harvey and puttin' on a talent show. Twice.

What I loved was going back to the late 50s/early 60s with a 2012 sensibility. It was irresistible to drive around in a '54 Ford Sunliner convertible with no seat belts, no one else on...more

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Dec 10, 2011 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Becky by: Barb

Shelves: stephen-king, nook, 2011, highly-recommended, horror, multi-dimensional, reviewed, the_south, fantasy, science-fiction, leg-hump_worthy, real-life-bookclub, challenge-1010

Time travel is one of those things that I just can't ever seem to wrap my head around. There are so many variables and questions... and it just generally ends up confusing me, and if it's not handled well, it usually ends up irritating me, too. So, I don't read a lot of time travel stories.

But this is King. And once again, he holds on to his title.

This book was incredible. I don't even know what to say about it. It's so fresh in my mind, and there are so many things I want to mention, so many...more

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May 05, 2013 Arah-Lynda Hay rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: top, i-said

Stephen King is a master storyteller. We all know this. So I should not have been surprised to have been swept away from the get go and taken to the Land of Ago, but I was. I was! I walked with Jake Epping through the 50s and 60s and into my own past.

11/22/63 as the title implies is a story centered on one, of the far too many, watershed moments of our lives: the assassination of John F Kennedy. Jake Epping, a middle aged high school teacher reads a story by one of his adult students, a gruesom...more Stephen King is a master storyteller. We all know this. So I should not have been surprised to have been swept away from the get go and taken to the Land of Ago, but I was. I was! I walked with Jake Epping through the 50s and 60s and into my own past.

11/22/63 as the title implies is a story centered on one, of the far too many, watershed moments of our lives: the assassination of John F Kennedy. Jake Epping, a middle aged high school teacher reads a story by one of his adult students, a gruesome, heart wrenching, true story, that brings him to tears, not a common response; no wait an extremely rare, response from Jake. Shortly thereafter Jake receives a call from a local diner owner, who has a portal to the past to show him and a story to tell. He also has cancer and is enlisting Jake to act on his behalf, go back in time and save John F. Kennedy. But this is King, so there are rules, and Jake now has his own little bit of history that he would like to see changed.

I was taken on a journey by the King’s own hand, held captive from cover to cover. And beyond! I’m not going to go in to this story. If you want a fantastic experience read it for yourselves, because it is King’s story that you need to hear. Let me just say that in his masterful hands you are transported in time to the late 50’s, early 60’s and that he is spot on! Everything is slower, simpler, a time of Glenn Miller and swing, with 59 Chevy’s and fins that went on forever! Cleaner air, unpreserved, delicious home cooking, friendly, trusting people, no cell phones, pre –Vietnam America! Camelot! Of course there is the other side of this era, from which King does not shy away: racism, domestic violence, cold wars and every ounce of oxygen polluted with first and second hand smoke. The Land of Ago born again: festering wounds and scabs intact.

What if you could go back in time and change the course of history, prevent one of those watershed moments of your own from ever happening? Would you? And if you did, what new history would take its place? As King shows us the past is obdurate, it does not want to change.

For me, this is that watershed moment. I remember everything about the day that JFK was assassinated; where I was, what I was doing, wearing, eating and thinking throughout the course of this historic day, even though I was still but a mere child. Ever since then I have wondered, on and off, many times, over the years, what life would be like if JKF had survived.

11/22/63 has now become my new all time favourite Stephen King book! It has reawakened in me everything that I have always loved about King’s stories. I need more, no doubt about that. So I have physically cleared a spot for 11/22/63 on my top shelf. No doubt it will dwell there for a long, long time.

In the end all you really need to know is: Read It! Read It! Read It!!
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Mar 05, 2012 Patricia rated it 5 of 5 stars

I finished this book yesterday but waited until today to write my review because I didn't want to gush, but I still feel the same way today - this book is so awesome. I'm definitely a Stephen King fan, but I think people who have never read his books would love this one. The concept of time travel and the consequences is something that is always fascinating, if we change one thing in history, how does it affect the world for years to come?

King's descriptions of how life was in the early 60's is...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Marco Tamborrino rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

«Aveva perso l'abitudine al romanticismo».

Prendete una caduta. Ginocchio sbucciato. Un po' di sangue, acqua ossigenata, cerotto. Roba da poco, ma quel bruciore dà comunque fastidio. Non dispiacerebbe tornare indietro nel tempo ed evitare di cadere. Ma cosa succede se, rimanendo in equilibrio, faccio cadere mia sorella di otto anni a faccia in giù e prende un colpo talmente forte che bisogna portarla al pronto soccorso?

Perché cambiare il passato?
Perché le cose vadano meglio.

Ehi, aspettate un atti...more

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Jan 15, 2013 BarkLessWagMore rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook, thriller

I’ll be honest here and state that the premise of this book didn’t really grab me when I first read a blurb. I was born several years after the assassination of JFK and missed the whole Camelot era of the Kennedy’s and can only see them as tragic figures. I don’t share those nostalgic feelings for the era and almost passed on this book. But then I saw it at my library as an unabridged audiobook and grabbed it because I’ll read anything on audio. And besides, I usually dig King’s work. When I sta...more I’ll be honest here and state that the premise of this book didn’t really grab me when I first read a blurb. I was born several years after the assassination of JFK and missed the whole Camelot era of the Kennedy’s and can only see them as tragic figures. I don’t share those nostalgic feelings for the era and almost passed on this book. But then I saw it at my library as an unabridged audiobook and grabbed it because I’ll read anything on audio. And besides, I usually dig King’s work. When I started this I remembered why. The man has mad storytelling skills. Immediately I was taken back to that other strange-to-me era, learning a good number of things and not once did I regret spending a good chunk of my week listening to 11/22/63.

Jake is a likable high school English teacher who is given the secret to a “rabbit hole” that allows him to go back in time and attempt to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is told this secret by his dying friend Al and seeing as Al has aged decades overnight he’s apt to believe him, crazy as it all sounds. But before he sets off to save the world he decides on a trial run. Al says he’ll be gone only 2 minutes of 2011 time, no matter how long he stay in the past, so he decides to test it out by saving a former student from a heart-wrenching, life-altering event. Returning to 2011 he discovers the changes stuck but things don’t work out quite as he planned. Determined to fix things and this time save Kennedy, he steps back through the rabbit hole again.

This bulk of the rest of book takes place in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s as Jake, now George, bides his time for that fateful date, making friends, changing lives, finding love and causing ripples with every move he makes. The past, George learns, doesn’t take kindly to changes and terrible things happen to him and those he grows to love whenever he makes a big move and they’re often described in all their grisly, gory glory. It was a grueling, heartbreaking read but also warm and funny and one where you root for the main character to win all the way through.

King does a fabulous job with his characters (as always) but it’s his setting as much as his people that truly pop out of the book and make it all come alive. The research must’ve been exhausting and though I can’t vouch for its accuracy (and surely he fudged some of it), I can say I was definitely transported to another time as I listened to the narrator expertly spin King’s tale of time-travel, hope, loss, love and desperation. If you can, I highly recommend “reading” it this way, the narration is fabulous (no monotonous narrator here) and brings it all to vivid life. I’m not going to lie, this book is long and a mite too long-winded, especially towards the middle as George goes about his daily business and follows mean, boring Lee Harvey Oswald around, but the thought of stopping it for something else never crossed my mind. This is a book I needed to finish because I cared so deeply about George and Sadie and all of their friends. It’s good stuff!
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Dec 01, 2012 Gary McTiernan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is hard to review. On one hand, the quality of the writing, the characterization and the plot are all masterful. It sucks you in and provides hours and hours of reading pleasure-and there in lies the problem. Too much of a good thing seems to sum it up. I laughed. (view spoiler) I cried. (view spoiler) I thought it would never end.(view spoiler)Where was the editor to say "Is this really necessary?" or "How does this advance the plot?" I...more

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Dec 31, 2011 John Goode rated it 5 of 5 stars

There are two types of Stephen King readers.

The ones who just read his stuff because it is usually "horror" and the ones who know what I mean when I saw all stories lead to The Tower. It is impossible to explain how each book is a brick in a much larger wall to someone who hasn't read every single book but trust me when I say...it is an incredible way to read books.

So to me there are two ways to read King's work. On it's own merit and how it connects to the rest of The Tower. The last tower book...more There are two types of Stephen King readers.

The ones who just read his stuff because it is usually "horror" and the ones who know what I mean when I saw all stories lead to The Tower. It is impossible to explain how each book is a brick in a much larger wall to someone who hasn't read every single book but trust me when I say...it is an incredible way to read books.

So to me there are two ways to read King's work. On it's own merit and how it connects to the rest of The Tower. The last tower book ended so badly that I had sworn off King for the foreseeable future if not forever. But I love time travel and I love books about JFK. So I am pretty sure he wrote this book just to rope me in again. I tell you this so you will understand my review.

As a book, it is incredible. Once again King takes us back to the late 50's in a way no one else seems to be able to do. The stark difference between that time and ours is almost like reading a fairy tale or ancient history. Unlike Donna Reed or Leave it to Beaver his past isn't perfect in every way, but it is so obviously NOT our time. I am not going to spoil anything but if you don't know the story is about a man who goes back in time to stop JFK from being killed then I'm not sure what you thought it would be about. The story is good, the time travel aspect is decent and the end made me tear up.

Now for the part that counts.

This is so a Tower book it is insane. If you are a Tower freak like me, this book is for you. It has everything you are looking for, a continuation of IT in a way, creepy homeless guys that aren't what thy seem, a word that is creepy and meaningless at the same time (JIMLA!) and the number 19. The best part is that there is an explanation which is a rare commodity in a King book.

At the heart of the story is a love story that I will remember for a long time.

A must read for Tower fans. A great read for Kennedy buffs. A sweet read for a good love story. A decent time travel story.

A FANTASTIC Stephen King book.(less)

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About Stephen King

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.(less)

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