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Reviews tagging 'War'

11/22/63 by Stephen King

33 reviews

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

🎧
I thought this was an enjoyable book. The pacing wasn't consistent, it was slow for most of the book and it was fast in others. I thought the characters were fine. I didn't really like many of them but I didn't dislike them either. I thought the plot was interesting, though a little predictable at times. 

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I feel so conflicted about this book! On one hand, I loved it overall, but on the other hand, I disliked much of it.

This book has an amazing, well-thought out, invigorating plot, for the most part. It's so interesting, and with the exception of the slower middle half of the book, it was a real page-turner. That middle part was kind of rough though. I'm not kidding when I say this took me a few years to get through. I wanted to persevere through this book because I liked the story, but the middle part just dragged on and on, and I put it down and then picked up several times the past few years. Once I got passed the middle part, however, I was back glued to the book.

I loved that this revolved around the trope of a historian-type figuring uncovering the truth about something that happened in the past, and I liked that it actually used time travel too. Stephen King, as he always does, successfully worked horror into the story as well, and I thought it was very well done in an understated kind of way. I didn't love the ending, but it was okay, and I was just happy to find out how it ended.

This book's romance was lacking, in my opinion. The book used the 'not like other girls' and 'man teaches woman what good sex is', and I really dislike those tropes. I feel like the romance could have written so much better than it was, but it wasn't the main plot that drew me in anyways.

Overall, I enjoyed it, felt 'meh' towards some aspects of the story, and will keep the book around in my personal library. Will I read it again? Not sure, but maybe someday.

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adventurous emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional mysterious relaxing slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I started really liking this book, but the longer I read (and it's a long, long, long book), the more I was bothered by some problems with this book:
- (Unnecessary) use of racial slurs and sexist language and the clearly white male perspective on those issues (in the past and present)
- There is too much happening with the characters, making the plot that the book is supposedly about, almost seem like an afterthought
- I really didn't like the protagonist.. 
- The ending.. (but that's to be expected I guess when you pick up a Stephen King novel)

But, I did finish it and there were parts that I was really enjoying it, but that doesn't make up for the story overall being underwhelming in the and, on top of the problems listed above.. 

Also, I read some positive reviews about the narrator of the audiobook, but I really cringed the way he portrayed the speech patterns and accents of certain characters, especially foreign, black and mentally challenged people.  

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

It wavers between being hard to put down and hard to keep reading often enough to feel like I'm getting whiplash, and the time traveling aspect could have been fleshed out a LOT more. Not his best but not his worst.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous hopeful slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous informative sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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