Review: IT, Stephen King

So, this review is my first. (Yay!) Naturally, I decided to review the book I most recently finished, which happened to be Stephen King's IT. Most widely-known for the movie adaptation (which I honestly haven't seen, and don't really know if I want to), this book is probably better known as 'the one with the scary clown'. Yes, there is a scary clown. But if you are a fan of King, or the thriller genre in general, I would strongly recommend this novel. But before I explain my reasons, here's the blurb:

To the children, the town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry, Maine was just their home town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A good place to live.

It was the children who saw - and felt - what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing...

The adults, knowing better, knew nothing.

Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once more to confront IT as it stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality.

Sounds intense, right. But it's King. Intensity is an obvious ingredient to his work. In terms of how the novel is actually written, I would say it is one of his best. It's the typical King style, which I haven't really seen mirrored by other authors, but is evident throughout almost all of his writing, and the same style has continued even up to his more recent works. Which is a big yes tick, in my opinion. Considering the plot, I would say that in some parts it does drag needlessly, and the book didn't reeeally have to be quite that long. All in all, though, the plot is amazingly well-developed, and you can't help but fall in love with the gorgeous characters of the children. The emotional attachment I felt for the kids (and later, them as adults) was quite strong, and let me assure you, I was quite mad at King at certain points in the book. The chapters twist and turn, you'll be reading about children one second and adults the next, but if you keep your brain switched on, the novel will make sense, and little confusion will occur.

It actually took me a while to read, not because it was particularly hard to get involved with - in fact, quite the opposite - but because some parts terrified me so much I couldn't continue reading for the while. I ended up mainly reading in well-lit, public spaces, and never while home alone. Especially not near drains. Perhaps that's just me, but I credit King's fantastical skill to his ability to make a mental experience so real for a reader, and I assure you, the memory of this book will stay with me, and I will definitely read it again.

So how would I rate the book? Well, I don't have any specific qualifications, but hey. This is my blog, and I have the power, right? I give it **** out of the possible five, merely because of the lengthy middle sections that sometimes bordered on being boring.

Image taken from cynniegurl's blog.

The Details:
Title: IT
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Publication Date: 1986
Pages: 1376
Source: Bought