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Graphic: Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Stalking
Minor: Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Alcohol
Graphic: Violence, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cancer, Emotional abuse, Blood, Injury/Injury detail
Some notes I took while reading:
• Excuse me, the 16-year-olds dancing was “sexy?!” Creep.
• Sex as the cure for a headache from almost OD-ing?! You wish, Stephen.
• Yes, I’m sure her most pressing concern after being traumatically attacked by her abusive ex-husband is how she looks in front of her current boyfriend.
• SADIE “THE VIRGIN” AS HER IDENTIFIER?? SERIOUSLY.
• Yes, because she needs a man to make her obviously very accomplished life worthwhile.
• And I hated the frequent use of phrases like “smoothly naked” and “her formidable bosom.”
In conclusion, I would hate to be written by Stephen King and I wish I could unread this book.
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Suicide, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Alcoholism, Racism, Sexism, Grief, War
King’s in-depth research resulted in details that bring the past to life - TV shows, advertisements, hair products, clothing styles, food. The cursing didn’t seem in keeping, though. My parents were the same generation as Jake, the protagonist and I don’t think middle class people would have cursed; they certainly wouldn’t have used the more vulgar words. (I’m not against cursing at all, but I don’t think it fits with the characters.)
Unfortunately, the book is bloated. It would have been better if it were about a third shorter. Also, as with all stories with annoying characters, I just wanted to shake Jake and tell him to get on with it.
I’m glad I read it and I think the story and the details are good but it was just way too long.
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Racism, Murder
Moderate: Sexual content, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Suicide, Terminal illness, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Stalking
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
But I kept going because hos books so often start slow building a base for the action, this was the first of his books I finished still thinking it was boring.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Antisemitism, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, Classism
Graphic: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexism, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, War, Injury/Injury detail
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.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Alcohol, War
Minor: Ableism, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Pandemic/Epidemic