Stephen King's 11/22/63

-->

First of all, let’s begin this review with an important statement. Stephen King is not a commercial writer, never was, and never will be. There you go. Now let’s review this amazing novel.

There are many elements that can pull readers to a story. The characters and how strong they are written, the plot and how the story goes, and most importantly in my opinion, is the writer’s style and his way of structuring his own writing. Stephen King has them all, all the elements that will not only pull a reader to his stories, but will build an emotional connection between readers and his characters. 11/22/63 is a perfect example of that.

Yes, it’s a time travel story (you can get that from the title and JFK’s picture on the cover) but that should not prevent you from picking up this book and reading it. Because readers who actually read this book will have a hard time explaining it or even considering it as a time-travel story. My personal explanation will be something like this: the core element of the story and the book itself is the concept of time travel and how people react to this idea, but it’s a one concept that King includes and not the main one. Readers will eventually shift their focus from the time travel element of the story and onto King’s characters. As the story’s protagonist, Jake Epping had me emotionally invested in his journey. King wrote Epping’s journey as the center layer of the story and then added a time travel element to it and that’s what made love this story. It caters to everyone, both the science fiction fans and also the causal readers that tend to focus on reality-grounded stories. Plus, Epping is a high school English teacher, so we English majors should always take care of one of our own.

I don’t want to go into details and spoil the story for you guys, but we can get a lot from just the cover and the name of the novel. It’s a story about a man who will go back in time and try to save JFK from getting assassinated. At first, the concept of the story did not interest me; another take on time travelling that will have many unexplained loopholes. I was wrong! King actually tries to explain many of the time travelling questions and give his own take on them, which was what I found very interesting. In addition to that, King’s novel has two main stories in them, a general one involving the JFK angle, and another one that will be more grounded and more enjoyable. King successfully gives his readers a reason to love both stories and even believe the link between them. Readers will want Epping to stay in the future, but they will understand why he must stay in the past and be with the women he loves. (I’ve said too much, gonna end my review here). Actually, there is one scene involving Epping’s lover that I really loved. It involves dancing, and that line went straight to my heart. Damn you Stephen King for making me cry over a fictional character!!

Simply read this book, you will love it.

Side note: I never knew that the F in JFK stands for Fitzgerald, one of my favorite American writers. That was an interesting and a pleasant surprise.

Pip