Sometimes their thoughts take shapes Sometimes they joy is almost tangible And sometimes they are real. They form the self-called "losers" club and encounter a horrible, awesome force lurking in their hometown A force that adults do not seem to see; a force that appears as a clown, holding a hand full of baloons.
The seven children all have one thing in common: they encountered IT. They had all escaped Or so they had thought. He claims he has seen a clown under the bridge Mike Hanlon, the sole member of the losers who remained in Derry calls the others and reminds them of the promise they had made all these years ago A vow to return if IT wasn't dead.
If IT will come back. And apparently, IT has. Can they face IT again? Can they go back to the horror they have long forgotten? They faced the terror as children. It was their time to take action, and they managed to fight it. Now they are all grown-up Will the monster be bested The first is the story of , where we meet the children and they first encounter IT; King effortlesly interleaves this timeline with the story of , where the adults return to Derry to fight IT, basing on research that has been done on the subject and their returning memories.
IT avoids the problems of most other lenghty books: plot threads that go nowhere. Each of them is important, and only adds to the suspense and builds up to the shattering climax. If there is a thing which places King above most other writers, it certainly is his great understandning of adolescence. Few others manage to write so vividly and convinclingly about childhood and coming of age.
The unquestionably hard time of growing up - school, bullies, parents, first crushes - they are all here, and the reader feels as if he himself was experiencing them. King allowed me to re-live my past again; I wasn't around in , but if I were I would undoubtedly be one of the boys. It is truly an impressive experience to read how King builds his characters and the world they live in.
Which of course includes stormdrains IT also manages to adress important social topics: racism, prejudice, domestic abuse. But most importantly it is a story about friendship and childhood: How it irrevocably binds people together and affect their lives. About the power of memory and imagination; about the terror of the familiar world which hides many secrets around the corners and down in the sewers.
It's a study of children facing the uncanny, and overcoming their greatest fear: the fear of being alone in fright. IT is a story of seven friends, each different, each indispensable and irreplaceable. King has proven himself earlier to be capable of producing an epic narrative The Stand in , but I think that IT is equal to - or even surpasses - the story of the plague.
This is a brilliant novel, beautifully told in crisp, clear prose, with truly unforgettable characters and situations. It is the essence of good fiction; the truth inside the lie. King knows his way around the corners; and has that undefiniable look in the eye, the dreamy look of a child.
His words are the best set of toys he ever had; and he's generous enough to share them with us. And when he's showing us how his trains travel along the tracks of his imagination and where they go to, we won't dare to blink because we could miss a minute of the experience And if it is the work of an "inadequate writer", a producer of "penny dreadfuls", without any "aesthetic value" or other high-flown pretentious gibberish babbled by people who would most likely want to cast Stephen King and his readers to hell for destroying the image of "Literary Reader"?
View all comments. Some parts were truly creepy at first and initially, as often happens with King, I couldn't put it down. But then, as often happens with King, it hits a brick wall and becomes so over-long and has so many unnecessary elements that get in the way of the main story that it becomes a bloated, endless chore to finish.
People often say they hate the ending of this book I did not hate it or love it. I had checked out at that point and simply wanted it to be over no matter who lived or died or whethe Some parts were truly creepy at first and initially, as often happens with King, I couldn't put it down. I had checked out at that point and simply wanted it to be over no matter who lived or died or whether they defeated It or not. This book is at least pages too long and that is the least that could have been completely cut out without hurting the story in the slightest.
The events and elements that killed "It" for me: 1. A bizarre, out-of-nowhere scene portraying sex play between two male pre-teen, would-be murderous bullies--which had nothing to do with the story and led nowhere. A detailed description of a kid murdering a baby sibling. No point, nothing to do with the story. The use of the "N" word more in one place than I have ever read or heard in my life combined. Not necessary, nothing to do with the main part of the story. And, the scene which blew me away and pretty much made me feel I had wasted time getting that far in: a gang-bang consisting of nothing but 11 and year-olds.
And when I say "gang bang" I mean it--six boys banging the girl back-to-back. Only abnormal people do not raise an eyebrow at this scene and try to defend it as being "natural" and "normal. So, aside from those main awful things the other annoying elements: the character of Richie. I skipped a lot of his dialogue. I wanted to punch him in the face just for being annoying.
And every time he did his "Mexican" voice I just cringed and skipped the next couple lines. Never has a character in a BOOK annoyed me so, so much. I was hoping he would die.
Their stupid inside joke of "Beep-beep, Richie. Painful to read. In the end King took a super creepy story and concept which he could have effectively told in probably pages and blew it up to over 1, with too much detail in certain parts, too much back story in others and too many subplots which didn't matter.
All of which pretty much wiped out any fear or creepiness for me. By the time I got or so pages in I simply was not scared, not creeped out, no longer interested and didn't care how it ended as long as it ended soon. I am aware that some people will feel that I "just don't get it" with my review and complaints.
I am totally fine with that. I am totally fine not "getting it" when it comes to this type of thing. Started off as five stars for me and crumbled onto itself into two stars. Cindy Cover I agree completely. Towards the end I was like what is all this extra stuff? Melissa Completely agree. Loved it at first but in the end I just wanted it to be over. Seemed like a bunch of loose ideas thrown onto paper.
I feel like his mind is always restless, always in a good mood to find the worst ways possible to scare the soul out of me. The King of Horror Stephen King is. No doubt. He is already used to this title and I am sure he accepts nothing less.
It is so far my favourite work of his. I lift it to the rank of a horror masterpiece. It is brilliant, it is amazing, it is incredible. Best horror I've read, hands down. It is macabre, it is sick, it is wrong, but the way it is put together lures you deep into the plot until the moment you realise you cannot get out until you finish. Your way through the plot is the devouring of the story.
This book is great, yeah, but have I told you why? Let me explain myself then. Everything is put in there with a precise purpose. Nothing is random. Every little detail has its own place in the mechanism of the storyline. Every single character has a strange particularity that makes him or her unique in his or her weirdness.
Which is also a peculiar thing to think about a group of schoolkids. But hey, as long as they face together Henry Bowers and Co. The research for this masterpiece has been intense because the facts are accurate and also searchable and also, different myths are combined, forming a common body. The myths are uprooted from their grounds and planted back again in the soil of an insignificant American town. How can this not be mind-blowing? So, with that being said, if you are a horror-freak or if you loved the movie, but did not read the book or if you are just plain curious, then you should totally and definitely check this book out!
But first, make sure you are mentally prepared for it, because, well, it is a long, tough ride! View all 59 comments. I'm not easily scared these days. As a grown woman, the only thing that brings the feeling of dread into my heart is the constant pinging of new work emails requiring my attention when I'm at home, but there was a time when I was a shy, delicate, sweet little girl who was scared of my own shadow.
Proof: not exactly the terror you see haunting the hallowed halls of Goodreads handing out 1 stars like they're candy these days.
It wasn't until I was around 20 that I outgrew my fear of scary creatures I'm not easily scared these days. It wasn't until I was around 20 that I outgrew my fear of scary creatures and things, and stopped tucking in my toes between the blankets, lest they get eaten by monsters, but before that happened I can say with complete confidence that this goddamn book and the movie scarred me for life. A sentiment that I'm sure many of you who have read the book and seen the movie echoes.
I remember the exact moment I saw this movie. It's not something one forgets. I was 16 years old. I was in Academic Decathlon competition in high school, and after studying for the competition, our little group decided on a movie night. The selection: Stephen King's It. From the moment that goddamn clown popped up on the screen from beneath the sewer, I knew this was a terrible, no-good, bad idea. I spent the rest of the movie hovering on the edge of my seat, crouched between my best friends, hands either over my eyes or clamped over my mouth to suppress my screams.
I went home. I didn't sleep that night. Neither did I get much sleep for the next two weeks. A few months later, it was winter. Spirit of the season. Clowns can't haunt me when it's Christmas, right? I was brave enough to actually read the book this time. Bad idea. So in closing, damn you, Stephen King. Out of all your books, this one has scarred me most. These days, I maintain a terror of two things: mummies long story , and clowns. I can no longer visit theme parks at Halloween. Thank you, Mr.
You shouldn't have. No, you really shouldn't have. View all 74 comments. Oct 10, NReads rated it really liked it. View all 33 comments. Nor was the clown simply swaddled in a bunch of bandages. It was deeply lined, the skin a parchment map of wrinkles, tattered cheeks, arid flesh. The skin of its forehead was split but bloodless.
Dead lips grinned back from a maw in which teeth leaned like tombstones. Its gums were pitted and black. Ben could see no eyes, but something glittering far back in the charcoal pits of those puckered sockets, something like the cold jewels in the eyes of the Egyptian scarab beetles.
I survived IT. The book is two novels entwined together. One is set in when seven children take on this alien creature, and the other is these same children, now adults, returning in to fight this entity again.
IT was meant to be. King manages to take these seven kids and make them into seven distinct personalities. Even as King reintroduces us to them again as adults, we see the personalities of the children, like a hot stamped template, still in the adults. Mike is the only one who stays in Derry, Maine. He becomes the town librarian, and by default, the person who keeps an eye out for signs of the return of IT.
The other six all leave and become very successful. Bill becomes a novelist and overcomes his childhood stutter. Ben loses all that weight he carried as a child and becomes a famous architect. Stan becomes a wealthy accountant. Richie is a disc jockey in LA. Eddie runs a successful limo service in New York. Mike speculates that IT has something to do with their career successes.
But what exactly is IT? The Plains Indians called it a manitou These same Indians believe that the spirit of the manitou could sometimes enter them… The Himalayans called it a tallus or taelus, which meant an evil magic being that could read your mind and then assume the shape of the thing you were most afraid of. In Central Europe it had been called eylak, brother of the vurderlak, or vampire. In France it was le loup-garou, or skin-changer, a concept that had been crudely translated as the werewolf, but, Bill told them, le loup-garou could do anything, anything at all: a wolf, a hawk, a sheep, even a bug.
Only Stephen King can begin a novel with such a horrific murder and keep readers glued to the pages. We have to know what the hell is going on? Our band of seven, or as they proclaim themselves The Losers Club, have watched plenty of horror films, so the things they fear have been manifested from the silver screen. Pennywise might morph into a mummy, Frankenstein, a large bird, a werewolf, a leper, a hideous spider, or a large crawling eyeball.
Once one of the kids tells the others what he sees, they can see it, too. The creature must adhere to the rules of the game: if IT is a werewolf, for instance, then IT is susceptible to a silver bullet. Adults are incapable of seeing what the kids see. If blood spouts out of a sink and coats the walls and floor, only the kids know it is there.
It is only when Mike calls them and asks them to come back in to stop the creature once again that they start to regain their memories. Got to become a kid again A young elastic brain does better with a world gone mad. At the end of the final battle, Derry will never be the same, nor will this reader. I, too, hope some of my memories fade as I travel further away from the pages of IT. If you are a fan of the horror genre, you have to read this book.
There is no time like the present with the new, highly acclaimed movie out in theaters. Read the book. Watch the movie. Mind wipe. Begin again. Hello, welcome to Derry..
I'm Pennywise the Clown and at some point, especially if your a kid, I will eat your face off! Have a nice day! The first time I read this book was in the 6th grade and I had forgotten how good it was! I loved the movie as well, but the book is so much better! I love how Mr. King goes back and forth from when the friends were kids and to them as adults and what they do in life now, while they are on their way back to Derry.
See, when they were young and all became friends, they made a pact that if "IT" ever came back so would they. IT showed itself to them in many different creeptastic ways but "IT" showed itself more as Pennywise the Clown! Bill's little brother Georgie was the first one to be..
I'm sorry, I don't care how old I am, if I saw a creepy clown down in a drain-gutter thingy leave me alone, I forgot the name! I would have ran until I fell over! I mean.. I love each of their separate stories and I love their friendship together. I love the camaraderie between the friends and how they believe each others stories of meeting Pennywise, even when he wasn't in clown form.
They didn't ridicule each other, they watched out for each other the best they could. At one point they think they kill ole Pennywise, but after many years and the killing of kids starts happening again, Mike, who stayed in Derry at the library, calls everyone home. It's weird how they all forget anything that ever happened to them until they get that phone call.
It's like they were made to forget. And there is sweet Pennywise to welcome them back! Uggggg, clowns!!!!!!!! I know there are some people out there that hasn't read the book so I won't give out any spoilers for them, but one of the group commits suicide before anything even gets started and another of the group gets killed before they kill Pennywise for good..
I think Mr. King should bring him back with a whole new set of peeps that have to take him out : Yes, I'm not quite right in the head! This is a very long book to read, but you know good books like this one really doesn't matter the length, when they are written very well, it just doesn't seem like a tome. Well, with the exception of holding the book up if you have joint issues, just let it rest quietly on your lap tray while you read : I didn't get bored not one time in this book, I did, however want to shoot a few people and of course Pennywise At the end Mr.
That's a good amount of time and would explain how freaking good the book was in all of the detail. The detail was just awesome! I'm going to leave you with one last thing Apr 05, Colleen Hoover rated it it was amazing.
Fuck you, Stephen King. View all 60 comments. Headed to see Ch. Anyone else seen it yet? Why yes, I did just complete my longest read to date. I simultaneously feel relieved and accomplished, drained and fulfilled. There are few authors who can successfully deliver such conflicting feelings, which is why he's one of the most well known names in the fiction world. I feel as if I could write an entire book about this tender and terrifying "coming of age" tale, but I also feel as if all the umph has left Headed to see Ch.
I feel as if I could write an entire book about this tender and terrifying "coming of age" tale, but I also feel as if all the umph has left my body for the moment. Definitely my favorite King novel that I've read so far and I hope to revisit this review after a time of processing and reflection to add more thoughts. Thanks for all the hand holding and encouragement you all provided along the way!
View all 78 comments. Mar 02, Mario the lone bookwolf rated it it was amazing Shelves: king-stephen. Stephen King is the Big Mac of writers his words, not ours. Unavoidable — an institution. Which is pretty incredible.
He suffers from triskaidekaphobia — fear of the number When I'm writing, I'll never stop work if the page number is 13 or a multiple of 13; I'll just keep on typing till I get to a safe number. I always take the last two steps on my back stairs as one, making 13 into There were after all 13 steps on the English gallows up until or so. When I'm reading, I won't stop on page 94, , or , since the sums of these numbers add up to A collection of short stories by HP Lovecraft called has often been cited by King as a catalyst in becoming a writer.
The cover of the book featured a demon. At the time he wrote the book he was drinking a lot like Jack. When it was revealed that the writer Richard Bachman was in fact Stephen King, he retired the alias citing that Bachman had died. The cause of death was given as cancer of the pseudonym. Apart from appearing in an American Express advert. King was declared unfit for military service in Vietnam because the draft board found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet and punctured eardrums.
King was always interested in drama and cropped up in a number of his movies. The musical debuted in Atlanta, Georgia in , and there was even a shortlived tour across the U. You can even find the soundtrack online! King first received payment for his writing from adult magazines like Playboy and Cavalier. These magazines bought and published King? King has often said that he was grateful to the magazines for publishing his work and paying him. Although some authors would probably shudder at their writing appearing in porn magazines, King has never hesitated to say that he was proud to see his early writing published anywhere, even if it was in an adult magazine.
The short stories from this early period have all been collected into a book called Night Shift. Stephen King is known to be a die-hard baseball fan who regularly cheers for the Boston Red Sox. However, he has also coached baseball throughout his life. In fact, he coached his son Owen? King is so proud of this accomplishment that he frequently mentions it in interviews and even wrote about the euphoria he experienced winning the Maine Little League Title in the prestigious New Yorker magazine, in an article titled?
King has also said that coaching baseball helped to bring him closer to his children, and that his family has bonded around their shared love of America?
King has even been known to pay the heating bills of poor families in Maine during the winter months, and the college tuition of students in need of financial help. Most of this charitable giving goes unnoticed, however, as the author is shy about promoting his good deeds. He's never put the president or left wing shit like pro covid establishment stuff in the past. He is clearly suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrom which is hilarious considering how badly Biden is doing in less than a year crating our economy, giving us how many doses of vaccine, the southern border crisis, now afghanistan.
So much buyer's remorse for biden voters and we all wish we could go back to when Trump was leading us and making America Great Again. Keith Ravenscroft Nope, you are absolutely correct. He's obsessed with the guy so much it's clearly infecting his writing. Richard Tolleson I love how the Trumpeteers get so triggered when their lord and golf master Bone Spur Donny is dissed.
Stephanie If you've followed King, you know he's not a Trump fan. The references were very brief and secondary to the plot. He always references politicians in his books, whoever is relevant to the times to date the novel.
They could have been so much worse. Eric Abels no you are certainly not the only one with this issue. King books , movies, and even the nfl. Patricia Trump's policies and pronouncements had an impact on us all, and King has every right to put this novel in that context. I have no problem with it. Goatllama Not alone. I'd rather not think about Drumpf at all when I'm escaping in a book, please.
Tony No you are not alone. These, past their prime, 'artists' just can't get past it. However, you don't hear them talking about the senile old man they elected who has turned his back on the people that actually do something for this country rather than bitch about it. Dan Marvin Then quit reading his books you idiot and take your political hate speech to twitter where nobody cares about your opinion!
Tony Well it's obvious who promotes hate speech. As for idiot, you obviously can't read because that's exactly what I said. I have two engineering degrees Well it's obvious who promotes hate speech.
I have two engineering degrees what's yours in working for a network nobody watches? Maybe once or twice if that many. And when he does, it's not this long diatribe like his Twitter posts. It barely registered with me and seeing the word Trump typically gives me hives. Susan Wallis It doesn't bother me at all. Most of his books have mentioned the current president at some point.
I think maybe people are just a bit more sensitive when it's Trump? Ewhitley These small subtle digs make me love Stephen King books even more. Dave Woodley Didn't even notice it - read the book. Who cares about the orange combover. Charismatic This will date these books horribly, and make King look like an ideologue -- which he is. Laurie below : just because YOU did not like Trump Liza Uncle Donny will be excoriated for years to come, so you better get used to it or stop reading, watching tv, or going to the movies Kellie I am no fan of Trump and I agree I have read Every.
I am reading to be entertained and transported to another world, not to constantly be hit in the head with the authors personal politics. Enough already. This is not the first book with the constant Trump jabs, but I sure hope it's the last But to make matters worse, as a born and bred Michigander, I take offense with Mr. King making Michiganders sounds like complete idiots who start every word they speak with a "d".
I don't speak that way and I don't know anyone who does We don't talk like that here, or in the U. I just felt Mr.
King might want to put a little bit of effort in if he is going to talk about us like that. Just saying Debra Vitus First off, his remarks are never overly political but are a picture into the mindset of his characters, second he is a master at using current culture as details in his books and whether you find that good, bad, or indifferent is a huge part of King as an author.
Justin Klinger i would find that easier to accept if you could find him doing it to any other President in the over 40 years he's been writing. Debra Vitus Nobody needs to accept or not to accept nor do I believe you are accurate and if perhaps you are.
If you don't believe people are despairing just read all the comments of on this post by the people who have nothing better to do than sound of about their hate for a president who is no longer in office. I am not a Trump hater nor did I find offense at what King wrote. My comments are nothing more than my opinion. I was simply looking for other reviews of the book, which I liked, and found a majority of Trump haters expousing their anti-Trump opinions ,which in my opinion, had not place in a running commentary about the book itself.
Nancy I have no problem with it. I just wish I never had to hear his lieing voice ever again. Vanillahugz I'm sure all you Trump haters would have to agree that things are so much better with Biden running the show? Eric I agree. Biden has been a complete disaster. Leaving Americans behind in Afghanistan, the invasion at the southern border, rising inflation, corrupt deals with China.
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