Name: Fabian's review of 11/22/63 by Stephen King
Item: 11/22/63
Rating: 4
Author: Fabian

Stephen King

Receiving a horrific essay from a GED student with a traumatic past, high-school English teacher Jake Epping is enlisted by a friend to travel back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a mission for which he must reacclimate to 1960s culture and befriend troubled loner Lee Harvey Oswald. By the best-selling author of Full Dark, No Stars.

11/22/63

Mentions of Derry, Bevvy Marsh, Richie T, and murderous clowns. A nod to IT.

Evelyn Morales

Danny White

In America, where surface has always passed for substance

I stroked a big red A on top of his paper. Looked at it for a moment or two, then added a big red +. Because it was good, and because his pain had evoked an emotional reaction in me, his reader. And isn’t that what A+ writing is supposed to do? Evoke a response?

Jake Epping is an English teacher in Lisbon falls, Maine, vv'ho makes extra money teaching in an adult education programme. One day, he receives an essay from one of his students — a harrowing first person story about the night, fifty years earlier. when Harry Dunning's fat her came home and killed Harry' mother. his sister. and his brother with a sledgehammer. 

Later, Jake's friend A1. who runs the local diner. divulges an extraordinary secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane - and insanely possible - mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. 

Inspired by his desire to put things right for Harry Dunning, Jake leaves a world of iPods and mobile phones for a new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars, root beers and Lindy Hopping. It is a haunting world 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 explores the culture. of the era and weaves it into a devastating exercise in escalating suspense. 11.22.63 is a love story, a tribute to a simpler time and place and a heartstopping What If? tour de force the like of which no-one has ever read.
--front flap

11.22.63 Mari-Claire Parrin

Fabian

I avoided this book for so long because of how daunting the length was. So glad I committed to it finally because wow! Now I understand why Stephen king is such a revered author. Beautiful and detailed writing but still interesting and exciting! 

Alicia Evans

An interesting premise - what would happen if you could go back in time and change one of history’s most defining moments? 

I wouldn’t dare critique America’s most prolific writer, but this book just didn’t do it for me. I found myself getting bored in the hundreds of pages of tangential side stories from the protagonists journey into the land of ago. Perhaps my next King novel will hit the mark.

Jacqui Spears

An interesting premise - what would happen if you could go back in time and change one of history’s most defining moments? 

I wouldn’t dare critique America’s most prolific writer, but this book just didn’t do it for me. I found myself getting bored in the hundreds of pages of tangential side stories from the protagonists journey into the land of ago. Perhaps my next King novel will hit the mark.

Bowie 

baku

Patrick Book

Surprisingly beautiful, romantic, and human. Maybe it's been too long since I read any of King's new work but this feels sort of like a revelation -- despite the fact that it's a time travel story that hinges in alternate histories it feels uncharacteristically grounded in the real world. And it's achingly romantic -- I don't remember ever being brought so close to tears by Stephen King. 

There are problems and issues with this, undoubtedly, but I got caught up enough in the story that I haven't dwelled on them for a moment. I loved this.

Mat Connor

My favorite Stephen King Novel.

I'm extremely nostalgic for this book. I recommend the audiobook version because the narrator Craig Wasson is just perfect. I tried watching the James Franco TV miniseries a little while back and I couldn't even finish it. Wasson's version is that important to me. I own a hardcover copy of this book, but if I ever reread this novel I'll be listening to the audiobook. 

One of the smartest decisions King makes is that he gives us a time travel story where time seems to slow down during the novel. The protagonist Jake is sent back in time to save JFK from assassination, but the portal sends him to 1958 and not 1963. So Jake has to live life for 5 years preparing to save the day. 

Those 5 years in between where Jake is just living life--teaching, correcting injustices of the past, making money by betting on sports, and falling in love with a librarian named Sadie--are the best parts of the novel. King tells the story in a deliberate (not slow) way so that you really feel the investment Jake is making with his time. It's a cliche to say that you didn't want a book to end but that's how I felt here.

Stephen King gets a lot of criticism for his endings. This is considered one of his best endings. The last scene is flawless, but I do think the ending could be improved a little. You should only read this spoiler if you've read the book:

(view spoiler)[Jake saves JFK but in doing so Sadie is shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. Jake is treated as a hero but heartbroken at losing Sadie. Jake returns to present day (2011) and finds out that saving JFK caused a terrible chain of events: nuclear war, environmental collapse, and race relations are even worse than now because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is never passed. In a nutshell, saving JFK did serious harm to the world.

Jake goes through the portal again and returns to 1958. He needs to decide whether to immediately go back to 2011 and reset the timeline (letting JFK die) or to stay back in 1958 where he led a happy life with Sadie and risk making more alterations to the historical timeline. He ultimately decides to go back to 2011. The world is back to normal. He looks up Sadie who is now in her 80s and asks her for a dance at an event celebrating her life. That last scene is beautifully done in the book.

My only issue is that Jake isn't given much of a reason to not reset the timeline. He's lost the woman he loved and the world went to shit. It would have been a more poignant decision if he was making a harder choice. For example, it would have been better if he returned to the present day after saving JFK and found that things were either not that different or even a little better. Maybe he would then decide to go back to see if he can do it better but this time save JFK and Sadie only to decide that he's risking too much by playing with time. I just think the decision should have been harder to make. It would have made it more poignant. (hide spoiler)]

Stephen King is a genius though so maybe I'm wrong and need to re-read this at some point to see if the ending works better for me.

Erik Craigo

Bria

There was so much going on here but it all had a place and there weren't any loose ends, especially with the alternate ending. I really enjoyed this.

logan chung

I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did – or as quickly.

Wulf Bergner

Am 22. November 1963 wurde John F. Kennedy ermordet und die Welt veränderte sich. Jake Epping kann in jene Zeit zurückkehren und will den Anschlag verhindern. Aber je näher er seinem Ziel kommt, umso vehementer wehrt sich die Vergangenheit gegen jede Änderung.

Roman

Der Anschlag

Dominik

A fantastic book about time travel and the famous butterfly effect associated with it. But that alone would not be King. His characters literally live. The resulting tension is almost unbearable. And the fact that Jake Epping travels back there precisely to save JFK raises this time travel thriller to unimagined heights. My favorite book.

Melissa M.

One of my favorite King books. The characters are incredibly well crafted, as they usually are in King's books. The storyline is compelling and a page turner to the very end. I was captivated the entire book, waiting to see how Stephen King plans to change the course of history in this story.

Peggy Walker

I am from the generation that can easily answer the question "Where were you when JFK was shot?" (my college library). That made this book especially interesting to me...and I'm sure many others. This was one of the first National tragedies to play out on television, and the whole nation was glued to their TVs for many days. I enjoyed many of Steven King's earlier novels, but felt he had lost something with most of his later works. However, I was willing to give this one a chance because of the historical context and intriguing premise. I thought that the author handled all of the details of the time-travel and the peculiarities that went with it very well. The effects on the time-traveler himself reminded me a bit of stories about space travel...how much time would have passed for the traveler versus how much time would have passed "on earth". Very well done. It was obvious that a LOT of research went into this book. I certainly learned more about Lee Harvey Oswald than I had ever known before, and I found it very interesting. I liked the ways that he conveyed how hard "history" fights not to be changed, and how we can never predict how "if only" scenarios might play out. I have always found Mr. King's "sentinel" characters to be annoying, but in this case I thought he resolved the "yellow-card men" fairly well. FINALLY, there was one who explained his role, somewhat. Overall, I found 11/22/63 to be a very absorbing and interesting read, and the best Steven King novel in quite some time.

Jonathan Tysick

I can't remember a novel I've read more obsessively. Despite it's length it keeps good pace and balances immersion in the late 50's/early 60's (meticulously researched!), romance, and thriller. Had my heart racing, face grimacing and eyes leaking. The ending is the bees knees. Probably a 4.5 because of the graphic (language, violence, sex), but this book is pretty amazing.

ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, THREE SHOTS RANG OUT IN DALLAS, PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED, AND THE WORLD CHANGED. WHAT IF YOU COULD CHANGE IT BACK?

In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King—who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer—takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.

It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away—a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life—like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963—turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there’s Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.
Source: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/11-22-63/Stephen-King/9781451627305

Petar Toushkov

Роман поразителна каша, която би се разминала на малко, дори талантливи, писатели и на нито един епигон. Всеки един цитат от книга на Кинг е подходящ, но този има две допълнителни характерни страни, които го описват още по-добре и във връзка с книгата - обем и сантиментална струна (ако се чудите кои са другите, сред тях е способността да изпълни и най-нелепия нотен текст по омагьосващ начин):

For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don’t we all secretly know this? It’s a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.

Ivan Giorgi

Kelly

This was one of the best books I've read in a long time - even though it took me 5 months to finish.

The characters are complex and well-rounded, the plot is captivating, and the ending was surprising but not rushed.

Keernan Lanismore

This could've been 350 pages shorter for a more solid ending. 

I might post a slightly better review later, but I might also decide not to waste any more time on King. >.<

Ashlyn

This could've been 350 pages shorter for a more solid ending. 

I might post a slightly better review later, but I might also decide not to waste any more time on King. >.<

Norma gruden

“But I believe in love, you know; love is a uniquely portable magic. I don’t think it’s in the stars, but I do believe that blood calls to blood and mind calls to mind and heart to heart.”

Mary Garza

Por segunda vez que leo Stephen King y no me decepciona, un libro que entretiene bastante, personajes que adoras y otros no tanto. El asesinato de Kennedy es un acontesimiento en la historia que al menos a mi me es irrelevante pero sin embargo me mantuvo enganchada de principio a fin, Y no era tanto por JFK sino por la historia que relataba Jake y todo lo demás, temía por el final algo me decía que no iba a terminar bien pero fue un final muy acertado y quede complacida con el. Y ya por el ultimo es lamentable y triste que me di cuenta que algunos pensamientos de los 60´s aun siguen presentes en pleno siglo XXI (racismo, desigualdad en la mujer y un gran etc.)

Dee B. 

22/11/63

Magda Pais

Aqui há dois anos, mais ou menos, vi este livro à venda e gostei da sinopse. Confesso que, na altura, o namorei várias vezes mas como tinha vários em espera e o preço não era exactamente atractivo, acabei por não o comprar. Mais tarde (o ano passado) a Fox deu a série que se baseia neste livro - 22/11/63 - e foi depois de ver a série que decidi que tinha mesmo mesmo de ler o livro.

Estas férias foi a oportunidade perfeita para o ler.

22/11/63 é, para mim, o melhor dos livros de Stephen King. A história está bem estruturada, houve bastante pesquisa de modo a que fosse o mais credível possível, e deixa-nos com a pergunta: o que farias se pudesses ir a um determinado momento do passado? (coisa, aliás, que já As Primeiras Quinze Vidas de Harry August, me tinha deixado a pensar).

Como seria o mundo se Kennedy não tivesse sido morto por Lee Oswald? Quem era Lee Oswald? Stephen King mostra, em 22.11.63, que é, acima de tudo, um contador de histórias, alguém sem medo de ferir susceptibilidades e que sabe como nos prender. Mesmo que a história principal (impedir o assassinato de Kennedy) só aconteça na parte final do livro (mais ou menos a um quarto do fim), até lá chegarmos vamos acompanhando a vida de Jake - vindo do século XXI - na década de 60 do século XX. Vamos conhecendo quem era Lee Oswald (King teve o cuidado de investigar a fundo a vida de Lee Oswald para se tentar aproximar o mais possível da realidade).

Um livro genial, longo - cerca de 900 páginas - mas interessante, até para percebermos como era o mundo na década de 60 do século passado. Há meros 60 anos, sem internet, sem telemóveis, sem redes sociais mas em que tudo acontecia à mesma, tal e qual como hoje.

Creiam-me... este é o livro que querem ler. Mesmo que pensem que é uma seca, que é enorme, que não gostam de excessos em ficção (sim, viajar no tempo é ficção em excesso) ou que não gostam do autor. Este é o livro que vos vai provar que estão enganados.

Dana Kraft

I can't remember the last book that I couldn't stop thinking about day and night until I finished it. I guess I need to read more Stephen King books because I loved this. Fun, terrifying, thought-provoking and addictive. I'm too young to get wrapped up in Kennedy stuff but I totally buy the depiction of Oswald as the lone gunman.

Fabian &
11/22/63 by Stephen King

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