Hello,
Stephen King by far is one of my favorite authors, he has written many of my favorite books over the last several years. I've read about 90% of his books. When I was in high school I turned my nose up against his books, until I actually read one. The first King book I read was "Christine", ever since then there's been no turning back. Besides "Christine", other King books that are my favorites include "It", "The Dark Tower" novels, "Hearts In Atlantis", "Firestarter", "The Stand" and "Pet Sematary". I also love the short stories that are used as the basis for "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Stand By Me".
One thing I like about King's novels is how many of them are so long, I love getting lost in a great story. I love them most when I don't read them too quickly, that's as the story can soak into my mind. It gives me time to think things through and come to my own conclusions. That makes the reading of the book even more enjoyable.
I do realize that "11/22/63" has been out for several months, but I just barely got around to finishing reading it a couple of days ago. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this book a solid 7. King certainly picked one of the most interesting times in history to base a book around. All of the coincidences that resulted in where Oswald was on the fateful date are a chapter in history by themselves.
One of the criteria I use to judge the quality of any entertainment media is the ending. I was less than enthused by the ending to this book. I was glad that Jake and Sadie ended up together, although it wasn't exactly the way I preferred. Overall the end left me blasé. King said his son, the excellent author Joe Hill, suggested an ending to King that King went with. I wish Hill would have suggested a different ending. One of the good things about the ending is that it isn't a story book ending, it's a very realistic ending.
As always I like King's characters- everyone from Jake and Sadie to the beleaguered Marina, Deke, Al Templeton and even the Jump rope girls. While reading Jake feels very relatable to me, we have enough in common that I understand his mindset. I know Jake didn't like doing the final reset to fix all of the butterfly effects his stopping of JFK's assassination made. I understand why in the final reset he didn't make the changes he had made previously. He allowed all the things he had fixed before to remain as they were originally: JFK dying and the little girl accidentally shot etc.
I do love King's writing style, the way he weaves historical details in his fiction. I can almost see the dumpy apartments Oswald, Marina and June lived in leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy. One can feel the desperation seeping from the walls of those apartments. I can also feel the quiet desperation of Oswald, who seems to think he had a date with destiny. He did have a date with destiny, but I'm sure he was surprised by how quickly it ended at the hand of Jack Ruby.
Of course since "11/22/63" is fiction I took all the historical details with a grain of salt, although King does say he was trying to make those details accurate. King's portrayal of Lee Harvey Oswald is less than flattering, I was wondering if he really was such a bad guy. I was intrigued enough to pick up Norman Mailer's "Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery" from the library. I read about the first 30 pages, which mostly is about Marina, and I don't know how much more I'm going to read. I'm not a big fan of Mailer's writing style in this book.
themusicaddict
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