It
4.7 | 51,555 ratings
Price: 26.24
Last update: 12-27-2025
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- Andrew RowellA Love Story Disguised as a Horror NovelI've read a number of Stephen King's books over the past 15 years, and had also read a number of his short stories prior to that period. King has always genuinely impressed me with his incredible eye for detail, his sense of place, and his ability to steadily pay out the rope line of a story's plot. Additionally, of course, he's the Jedi Master of creepiness. Although I was familiar with the premise of IT --- indeed, I watched the ABC miniseries back when it first aired in 1990 --- , I had never taken on this massive work as a reading challenge.
With the recent release of the big-screen adaptation of King's story, I felt that it was time to shift this novel to the top of my bucket list. Now, having reached the conclusion of this tale, I stand entertained, inspired, and deeply moved. You see, to me, IT is not simply an epic horror tale; I feel that is also a powerful odyssey of friendship, belonging, coming of age...and love. From the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the narrative chronicles the lives and times of a group of young pre-teens growing up in the small town of Derry, Maine. These young people are brought together by fate and circumstance to forge a fundamental bond, upon which is built not only all of their intense and complicated interpersonal relationships but, ultimately, their shared commitment to confront an unearthly monster that has, for generations, stalked and murdered Derry's residents --- especially children. As the members of the "Losers' Club" grow to know one another, become playmates, and evolve the fierce and pure loyalty and protectiveness towards each other that are so characteristic of young kids, their showdown with It looms closer and closer.
Of course, the story’s titular antagonist is, ultimately, the most frightening of the Losers’ Club’s foes. However, what childhood would be complete without the unwanted attentions of schoolyard bullies? Led by Henry Bowers, a seething, dangerously angry son of a poor local farmer, a group of boys a couple of years older and bigger than our young heroes is an all-too-familiar presence in Derry, and it repeatedly attempts to corner the “Losers” when they’re alone, or at least outnumbered. Under the mostly unspoken leadership of “Stuttering” Bill Denbrough, the Losers’ Club’s lovable misfits navigate their way through a strange 1958 summer, a season of weird and frightening revelations, discovering more and more about Derry’s many hidden secrets even as they reveal more and more of themselves, their foibles, and their fears to one another. Bill is clearly the linchpin of the group, made all the more so by his anger, terror, and guilt over the awful death of his younger brother Georgie, another of It’s victims. With Bill often taking point, the Losers’ Club manages to (mostly) stay out of the clutches of Bowers and his group of thuggish louts.
These “lost” children create their own tribe of sorts, a surrogate family that provides companionship, love and support when most of the adults around them are too wrapped up in themselves and their own private hells to be much help. Beverly Marsh, the sole girl in this society of seven, is sort of a tomboy, whose generally greater maturity and budding sexuality throw an understandable monkey wrench into the group’s dynamics. Stan Uris, one of the few Jews in Derry, is quiet, bookish, and sensible; Richie Tozier is the wise-cracking obnoxious kid with a heart of gold. Ben Hanscomb is the gentle and whip-smart fat kid who is brave beyond his years. Eddie Kaspbrak, smothered by his hyper-protective mother and suffering from crippling hypochondria, is imaginative and inventive and loyal to a fault. This septet is rounded out by Mike Hanlon, only child of one of the only African-American farmers in the area; Hanlon is, from the start, the group’s scribe, in fact carrying on in this role into the Losers’ adulthood...he is the only one of the seven who will stay in Derry through the seasons, years, and decades, until, in 1985, the horrifying disappearances and murders which seem to plague the town every 27 years or so begin again. Hanlon has watched and waited, like a sentry, wondering if he will ever have to contact his friends from so long ago, friends who have moved on to a wide range of professionally successful but sometimes personally haphazard lives. Moreover, he is unsure not only if the grownups sprung from those children of 1958 will adhere to the promise they all made to return to Derry to confront It if It should resurface, but if they will remember that era of their existence at all. As with the greater community of Derry, individuals there often seem to lose connections with their pasts, as if afflicted with some kind of metaphysical amnesia.
By turns eerie and cheerful, terrifying and ridiculously funny, IT takes us on a tour of what it was --- and is --- to be a kid. You dream big dreams. You skin your knees. You find puppy love. You make friends. You suffer setbacks and even full-blown tragedies. If you are one of those folks to have had the good fortune of having a few really close partners-in-crime with whom to spend the lazy days of summer, then King’s novel will, I think, deeply resonate. The exquisite use of detail to accomplish painstakingly complex world-building, of which King is truly a master, breathes real life --- and death --- into Derry, Maine. The movement of the narrative back and forth in time is achieved quite seamlessly, and the author’s attention to what I’d call the continuity of experience helps readers to much better comprehend the twisted and disturbing history of the town, and to appreciate the raw passage of years, both during the lives of the main and supporting characters and in the time periods of some of the narrative flashbacks that provide the audience with a rich backstory.
The intrepid heroes of this very long and sophisticated novel love each other. They stay loyal to each other, even when, sometimes, their hearts are breaking and they are losing faith in everything around them. They have, in the modern vernacular, each other’s backs. The innocence of much of their summer shenanigans is counterpointed powerfully by moments when each of them faces unpleasant truths about their families, as well as by the crucial points in the story at which the lurking, quintessential evil of It shows itself, however fleetingly. As Bill and the rest move inexorably toward their encounter with Derry’s awful monster, they are, in many ways, simultaneously leaving their true childhoods further and further behind, just as, in the intervening generation or so between their various departures from the town and their perhaps foreordained return to it, their memories of that time and place fade like a mostly-forgotten nightmare.
I could not recommend this novel more strongly. As a thrilling and thoughtful example of the best that the horror genre has to offer, IT is superb. However, as I said before, I believe that, when you take the journey to this haunted New England town, and face down monsters both human and inhuman, right alongside some of the most genuinely childlike characters to have ever graced the pages of a literary work, you will remember what it’s like to dream, imagine, dare, and love, all over again. - Damian DauriaCosmic horror at Its finest!I am a very slow reader and my capacity to read books over 400 pages does not exist; however, I recently found out about the bluetooth feature on kindle and learned it can read the book to you! For me, this was a game changer and I took the opportunity to try and read a book (this book!) that I have always wanted to read, have attempted to read, but was never able to get more than 50 pages through.
With the assistance of the Kindle keeping up a good reading pace and helping me focus, I pushed myself past my reading comfort zone and this book was beyond what I was expecting. I have watched the TV mini-series as well as the 2 feature films and the book takes you to a whole different dimension! This story pulls you in and makes you feel like you are part of the club tasked with confronting evil in its purest form. I am glad I challenged myself to finish this book and I cannot recommend it enough! - AntonioA rollicking good read... with a few quibbles"It" is the third Stephen King novel I read (after The Shining and The Stand). Although very long, it makes for compulsive reading. I couldn't put it down during the year-end holidays. The story is very good. A small city in Maine is periodically purged by an unseen evil that is often associated with the presence of a grotesque clown. A group of child "Losers", outcasts for various reasons, manages to escape this redoutable presence and after a quarter century returns (with some attrition) to finish the job they started but neglected to finish. Members of the group are very well fleshed out and the interplay between their youthful and adult personae is diverting. The horror is also very well rendered and there is continuous suspense.
I have just a few quibbles. The sex bit, to which I won't refer in order not to spoil the reading for others, is unnecessary and very creepy, not horror-book creepy but real-life creepy. It seems tacked on the rest of the book, does nothing for it and rather tarnishes it. Although the Turtle is hinted at early in the book the scenes featuring this character are unsatisfactory. More detail would have been nice. If there is only one It in the entire universe and it has always resided in what would later be known as Derry, Maine, it doesn't make any sense of the Chüd Ritual to come up in a Nepalese scroll (how would the Nepalese have known about It?). Also the scenes concerning this Ritual do not match what the Ritual supposedly was about (joke telling, laughing, etc.). Even though elements of horror story elements may be ridiculous in themselves the conventions of the genre require that they be taken entirely seriously for the story to hold together.
This is not to say the book was unamusing. It is spellbinding, almost Proustian in its remembrance of the joys of childhood and full of popular 1950s culture details (music, TV programs, slang, movies) that give a certain weightiness not normally present in horror books. And, as a horror book it is very good. What better antagonist than one that may look and act like what each person fears the most? And what place is scarier than the tubes and ducts that are the modern equivalent of catacombs?
If I were allowed to rate the Kindle version I read I'd give it 1 star. The software they used to copy the printed version into Kindle format still needs a lot of work. It misreads many letters and punctuation symbols, sometimes to hilarious effect. Of course it is fairly easy to read through these mistakes, but they slow the reading down and spoil it a bit. Horror stories should be read breathlessly so that one forgets the act of reading and is totally engrossed in the story. I recommend to whoever is responsible for these things to pay someone to proofread the books before they're sold over amazon.com. Kindle books (particularly those sold at commercial price) should be held to the same quality standards as printed books. - Amazon CustomerGreat and terrifyingScariest book I ever read. Originally, I read it when I was 11 and I had trouble sleeping for months. Stephen King is known as the Master of Horror for a very good reason! The quality of this book was nice. Easy to read, no smudges, clear print.