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Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Murder
Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Hate crime, Xenophobia, Alcohol
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Sexism, Violence
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Stalking
Minor: Cancer, Antisemitism, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, War
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Murder
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Racial slurs, Racism
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gun violence
Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug use, Racial slurs, Racism
Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death
Graphic: Gun violence, Murder, War
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Self harm, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Stalking, Suicide attempt
Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in Maine, USA, gets summoned to the back room of his favorite diner by Al, a dear friend, who shows him a portal to the past. Literally. A straight line to 1958 and back. Al is dying, and wants Jake to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jr. But that would require spending 5 years in the past just to get to that point, and still it remains unclear who really shot JFK. Was it truly the lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald? Was it the CIA? Soviets? And what will the future behold, if he's successful?
But I've buried the lede. It's a romance novel, I promise.
What I liked:
- strong historical research
- feasibility of how the characters would have acted
- the flow of the storytelling
What I didn't like:
- failure to critically assess the downsides of the 50's and 60's
- only a peek behind the curtain of the time travel system
- the "downstream effects" of altering the past seemed farfetched in a book that was otherwise very reasonable (within its own world, of course)
When the book was written (2011), the willingness to overlook the glaring flaws of the midcentury in order to appreciate "a simpler time" was more okay than it is now, or maybe I just have a lower tolerance for it. Yes, major bad things happened to marginalized people as a part of the plot, but the character didn't seem to mind the "generic racism" that permeates his environment, for example. I prefer Kindred by Octavia Butler for getting that criticism correct.
The ease of systemic oppression is too distracting for me to really love the book. But to give the great Stephen King credit, it's the first book in a long time that I stayed up late to continue reading. Which was dumb, given that I was plagued with nightmares afterwards. But hey, I kept going back, because the book is written so compellingly. The characters are themselves. The time travel system sparks my curiosity, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time. And I'll certainly continue to pick up Stephen King novels.
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Medical trauma, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Antisemitism, Stalking
Minor: Terminal illness, War
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence
Moderate: Sexual assault