From the Bookshelf of Crazy Challenge Connection…

11/22/63

Stephen King

Start date: March 1, 2012

Finish date: March 31, 2012

Why we're reading this: March 2012 Book of the Month Read
[close] March 2012 Book of the Month Read

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Aug 16, 2012 Steven rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2023, reread, read-in-2014, he-s-the-king-and-he-needs-hailing, ttx

Liked it just as much on reread! :D

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Nov 22, 2019 Olivermagnus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: time-travel, 2019

Jake Epping is a 35 year old divorced English teacher, who loves to eat at Al's Fatburgers. On the last day of the school year, he's urgently summoned by Al, who informs him that inside the diner there is a rabbit hole that enables one to be instantly transported to 11:58 a.m. September 9, 1958. Even though he recently ate lunch at Al's, the Al he sees once he arrives has aged seemingly overnight and is now suffering from cancer. It turns out Al is trying to use his rabbit hole to keep John F. K Jake Epping is a 35 year old divorced English teacher, who loves to eat at Al's Fatburgers. On the last day of the school year, he's urgently summoned by Al, who informs him that inside the diner there is a rabbit hole that enables one to be instantly transported to 11:58 a.m. September 9, 1958. Even though he recently ate lunch at Al's, the Al he sees once he arrives has aged seemingly overnight and is now suffering from cancer. It turns out Al is trying to use his rabbit hole to keep John F. Kennedy from being assassinated on 11/22/63 by Lee Harvey Oswald. Al is now too ill to continue his task and wants Jake to take it over. Al wants him to promise that he won't kill Oswald until he finds out that there wasn't a greater conspiracy involving others. If that's the case, then killing Oswald won't really stop the assassination. “Save Kennedy, save his brother. Save Martin Luther King. Stop the race riots. Stop Vietnam, maybe… Get rid of one wretched waif, buddy, and you could save millions of lives.”

Jake takes the challenge and settles down as a teacher in a small Texas town for four years. In between tracking Oswald's movements, he falls in love. He worries about how changing one aspect of history will change what happens in the future, ala The Butterfly Effect. As I read my way toward the finale I wondered if it would be disappointing when I got there. As Jake races through the streets of Dallas on November 22 trying to avert the killing he knows is minutes away, King’s storytelling skills take the reader right into the moment.

King did a fantastic job of putting the reader into the culture of the late 50's and early 60's. At first I wondered how the story would be filled out to cover the almost 900 pages. Leave it to King to infuse every page with suspense, nostalgia and historical insight. I was so captivated it was impossible to stop reading. You have to suspend belief whenever you read a time travel novel but this is one of the best I've ever read. I purchased it shortly after it was published in 2011 but kept putting it off. When the opportunity came to get it on the Trim list for the challenge, part of me hoped I would read it and another part dreaded it. I'm so glad #28 was called. This was an utterly brilliant book and I highly recommend it.

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Apr 24, 2013 Cathie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: chunkymonkey, coffeeandbooks-botm, favorites, historical-fiction, science-fiction, mystery, i-cried-damn-it, 2013-reads, 2013-favorites, you-ll-love-this-challenges

Oh my God, it's a love story!! Mixed with time travel, mystery, suspense, humour and only the written word that Stephen King can deliver. This is by far my favourite Stephen King novel (and they are all very good).

The pitfalls and chills of time travel, and how we would tinker with history if we could play God. How our best way of thinking never equals the way life is meant to be.

"Hearts don't really break; if only they could."

Peek not through a knothole, lest you be vexed."

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