Title: 11/22/63 (Goodreads)
Author: Stephen King
Published: Scribner, 2011
Pages: 849
Genres: Science Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
Jake is a recently divorced high school teacher who finds himself time traveling to 1958. Fascinated by the chance to live his life in what feels like a much simpler time without mobile phones and the internet, Jake decides to live a life that transgresses all the normal rules. He makes his home in 1958, gets a job he enjoys, falls in love with the beautiful librarian and tries to live the ultimate American dream. But he is also obsessed with making the world right, most importantly trying to stop a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. But does Jake know just how much the world would change if he stops the Kennedy assassination?
I’ll be honest with you, I’ve not read much by Stephen King before, two books in fact (one of those was On Writing). I went into this book expecting a novel about time travel and the effects of changing the past would have. I also expected some weird plot with supernatural or horror elements but that’s just what I expect from King. What I got was something a lot different; this was more of a “what if?” novel. King explores his own thoughts of alternate history and time travel but he doesn’t really stop with that.
Possibly the most unexpected part of this novel was the character building and living life in the late fifties and sixties. King does an interesting job at telling a story of living in the era but in his own unique way by making the protagonist feel out of his element. The whole idea of living life in a time you are not from and finding someone in that time that could possibly be your soul mate. That was not what I thought King would write about but he did a great job building a memorable story around what he wanted to talk about.
Sure, some people are going to want him to skip all the normal life stuff and get to the time travel and alternate history aspects but I found it enjoyable leading up to it. It’s no Mad Men with the characters and life in the sixties but I did enjoy reading it. It’s a huge book and it could have been trimmed but if I was the one to take out elements I probably would have taken out the time travel. Then the book wouldn’t have worked as well.
I’m very interested in that time period, but I would have either preferred a more Mad Men style novel or more noir style with the war on organised crime and those dodgy back door deals made by the FBI. It did end out being a very interesting novel; it definitely surpassed my expectations and turned into a good read. Stephen King is a good story teller but there was not much to love about the prose and style but overall it was worth the read.
I need to play catch-up with King–the last one I read was Lisey’s Story, and I’ve been wanting to read both this and Under the Dome. I often enjoy King’s characters, and the slow-burn way that things build. Sorry to hear that this one didn’t quite live up to expectations for you.
I guess with King I expect horror elements, but it wasn’t there
I read this one as soon as it came out. I did like it but I felt something was off. At one point I almost got bored with Jake’s life in the 60s and skipped a few pages here and there. I also was disappointed with the short and sudden effects that changing the past led to. I was hopping for that part to be slower, more detailed. I have read quite a few of King’s book (The Green Mile and Under the Dome are my favorite). Did you read The Stand. Well, I couldn’t even finish it! I’m going to get 11/22/63 in Spanish for my mom, after all she cried when Kennedy died 🙂
I’ve only tried On Writing and The Dark Tower. Might try some more sometime
[…] what I wanted but it was still good. I’ve not read much of King in the past (The Gunslinger and 11/22/63) and both those novels really were not what I would have expected from a Stephen King novel. I must […]