11/22/63 in Crazy Challenge Connection

Mar 09, 2013 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: concierge, strong-women, library, books-about-books, own, 20th-century, historical-fiction, texas, audio

Audio book performed by Craig Wasson, with an afterword by the author.
4****

Jake Epping is a high-school English teacher, who also teaches adults seeking their GEDs. One of those adults is Harry Dunning, the school janitor, who is obviously “slow” and walks with a limp. The essay he writes describing the “The Day That Changed My Life” stuns Jake. So when his friend Al Templeton reveals that there is a portal to the past in his pantry – a “rabbit hole” that will take the traveler back to Sept 9, 1 Audio book performed by Craig Wasson, with an afterword by the author.
4****

Jake Epping is a high-school English teacher, who also teaches adults seeking their GEDs. One of those adults is Harry Dunning, the school janitor, who is obviously “slow” and walks with a limp. The essay he writes describing the “The Day That Changed My Life” stuns Jake. So when his friend Al Templeton reveals that there is a portal to the past in his pantry – a “rabbit hole” that will take the traveler back to Sept 9, 1958 at 11:58 a.m. – Jake decides to try to change Harry Dunning’s history. But Al has a larger, more important, historical event in mind; he just has to convince Jake to take it on.

The cover art and the title really tell the reader up front that the focus of this novel will be the Kennedy assassination. But King takes his sweet time getting there. Jake will have to live in the past from Sept 9, 1958 to Fall 1963 if he’ll have any chance to stop Oswald (or whoever it was who pulled the trigger, or conspired to do so). Among other things, he’ll have to actually determine whether Oswald was acting alone, or was just the “patsy” he claimed to be. But in those intervening years, Jake will find work and will meet and come to care for a variety of people – students, fellow teachers, neighbors, and one very special librarian.

I’ll admit I was a bit frustrated that it took King so long to get to the critical events of November 1963. I knew he had to have a good reason for this, but I wasn’t seeing it and I grew impatient. This is NOT to say that the book is slow. Far from it. King is a master at pacing a thriller to keep the reader turning pages. But if he told me one more time that “the past is obdurate” … well I was going to have to throw something at the CD player. However, I grew to care about all the events Jake experienced long before he got to Dallas. From the slang used to the fashions of the day and on to the small details, such as the price of gasoline, King immerses the reader in the “land of ago” and gives us a chance to recognize how very different that time was from 2011. He forces us to think about “what might have been” and “where might we be today” if only …

However convoluted and long the journey, I’m glad I went along. I was in tears (yes, in a Stephen King novel!) at the end of Chapter 31. I really wish he had ended it there. This is a novel that cries out for an ambiguous ending. The last chapter – Citizen of the Century – seemed like an afterthought, and while it was nice to have some of the loose ends tied up, for this reader the impact of Chapter 31 was lessened.

Craig Wasson was superb performing this audio. He even did a fair impersonation of real figures (Walter Cronkite and President John F Kennedy specifically), and had reasonably good regional accents. I also really appreciated that King read the audio of his afterword. The story was a sort of personal one for him, having lived through the events of that fateful day, and wondered “what if…”

(Review updated on re-read: July 2025)
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Apr 09, 2012 Tien rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, time-travel, favorites, own, read-on-kobo, moving-mt-2015, mm-16

I love love love this book! I’ve only read a handful of Stephen King’s books as horror isn’t my cup of tea so I’ve primarily read his fantasy works plus a few of the ‘horror’ stories (horror in quotation as I try to pick ones that aren’t too scary for me). What’s to love about 11.22.63? Firstly, it’s time travel –my most favourite kind of story! I love the setting (late 50s / early 60s in US) and I just adore the many possibilities, the uncertainties, and cause & effect etc. There are so much to ...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Stacy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-stars, e-books, read-in-2012, owned-books

It's been years since I read a Stephen King book, but this was amazing!

Without going into any spoilers, there are parallels in the two main time periods that are spooky at times.

It's too bad that there isn't a real time travel hole so that someone could go back in time and take care of Josh Powell (scumbag that murdered his wife, and later, his two sons). ...more

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Nov 15, 2014 Nancy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, america, alternative-history, time-travel

What would happen to the world if JFK hadn't been assassinated? This was a question which Jake Epping was asked to face seriously when his friend Al admitted that he had discovered a way to step back in time, back to 1958. Al, dying of lung cancer, tasked Jake with going back and trying to stop Lee Harvey Oswald but it was no simple task. As Jake observed on multiple occasions, the past is obdurate. It doesn't want to be changed. Spending 5 years in the past preparing to stop that momentous even ...more

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Jul 02, 2023 Angela rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, read-2023, sci-fiction, historical-fiction, towerteam23

4.5 stars

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Oct 27, 2011 Suzanne rated it really liked it

Shelves: paranormal

4.5 stars - Wow, I can't believe I read the WHOLE thing!! I'm not usually a King fan, but that's mostly because I'm not much of a fan of horror / science fiction. But, King is a great writer and this book will stay with me for a long time. For one thing, I was born in 1963 and have always been fascinated by the JFK assassination. In the afterword, Mr. King notes that he takes some literary license, but did a tremendous amount of research in preparing for this book. I hadn't really known much abo ...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Chris rated it it was amazing

Shelves: time-travel, fiction, united-states, favorites

Wow! I've purposely avoided reading Stephen King for more than 30 years. I couldn't imagine he would write something I'd be interested in reading. I've never been so happy to be wrong. I've always liked time travel stories, and I've always been interested in the JFK assassination, so I've been sniffing around this book since it came out. When I saw it in the library I thought, well, I'll just look at the first couple of pages. 15 minutes later I was still standing there, and I was totally hooked ...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Rachel N. rated it it was amazing

Jake Epping is told by his friend Al Templeton about a hole to the past that exists in Al's restaurant. Specifically the hole always leads to a date in 1958 and every time Al uses it he's only gone from the present for 2 minutes. Al's dying and he wants Jake to use the hole to go back in the past and prevent JFK's assassination on 11/22/63. This book is more a love story combined with time travel with really no horror in it. I loved the story of Jake and Sadie and the ending was terrific. Readin ...more

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Apr 24, 2017 Annika rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Amazing!

Absolutely one of my favorites by King. This book is simply a masterpiece and has one of King's all-time best endings. I can't believe I waited so long to read it. ...more

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