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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
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:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
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:
Yes
Gonna be thinking about the glass tunnel between the libraries forever. 🥺
What an incredible book, the audiobook really flew by and was one of the best I’ve ever listened to.
What an incredible book, the audiobook really flew by and was one of the best I’ve ever listened to.
Derry, eine fiktive Kleinstadt im US-Bundesstaat Maine steht unter dem Einfluss des Bösen. Etwa alle 27 Jahre kommt es zu brutalen Gewalttaten. Insbesondere verschwinden und sterben Kinder durch das mysteriöse Wesen "Es", das ihnen als Clown oder als Verkörperung ihrer größten Ängste erscheint. Im Jahr 1985 kehren einige Männer und eine Frau zurück nach Derry, um den Kampf fortzusetzen, den sie 1958 im Kindesalter gegen "Es" geführt haben. Im Wechsel werden Geschehnisse von 1985 und aus der Vergangenheit berichtet. Es ist ein geschickt konstruierter Roman mit vielen Rückblenden und kleinen Geschichten, die ineinander greifen, so dass sich nach und nach ein Bild der unheimlichen Vorgänge in Derry zeichnet. Trotz der mehr als 1000 Seiten, die das Buch umfasst, wird es nie langweilig und ungeachtet des etwas einfachen (kindlichen) Schreckens, den "Es" verkörpert, hat es einige wirklich spannende Momente. Einizg Kings Schwäche mit Sex-Szenen trübt das Lesevergnügen an einzelnen Stellen. Insgesamt ist es ein großartiger Roman, der zurecht bereits als Klassiker der Horrorliteratur gilt.
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Took me forever to finish, but I did enjoy the sessions and felt compelled to see it through. As others have noted, King let's his train of though run wild — sometimes to great effect but other times making the book a chore. The sprawling historic nature is quite interesting though. My biggest issue was the way he almost obsessively wrote about sex, especially in the past parts of the book. I understand the sexual nature of the themes and th fact the Losers are nearing puberty in the past, but it was excessive an uncomfortable. The most offensive bit of this might be Kin mentioning Bill's boner for the third time in a chapter as Beverly is literally recounting her childhood trauma. She as a character is lovely but her job is to be abused and lusted over. I actually thought the domestic violence parts of the book were handled really well but the overall scope of things in regards to the way King writes about the boys' desires and how he undermines her very dark moments with sexual content is off-putting.
Worth a read for the parts of the book where King really hits his horror stride though. And the man really knows how to set the scene.
Worth a read for the parts of the book where King really hits his horror stride though. And the man really knows how to set the scene.
Only took me 5 yrs…
I could not w that unnecessary ending. The narrator popped off though !!
I could not w that unnecessary ending. The narrator popped off though !!
I wanted to love this book. I really did. I read other Stephen King classics and absolutely enjoyed them. Misery. Carrie. The Shining. I wanted my experience with It to be the same, because it's one of Kings most popular novels and I love him as a writer and storyteller. But I was disappointed with It.
Fair warning my opinion is extremely biased because unfortunately I hated what I had read so much that I didn't even finish the book. I'm usually so adamant about finishing books and yet I had to divorce this book. I had too.
As usual King had amazing descriptions of the setting, characters, and the scenario. But...it was almost as if I was reading too much of a good thing, because this book had everything that I loved from Kings other stories. But for some reason this book had that times infinity and it became too much for me to handle. Almost too much detail, too much slow burn. It was taking forever for me to get out of chapter one.
There's this one little snippet that I remembered taking forever to read and it was the description of adult Eddie Kaspbrak's medicine cabinet. As a reader I would wonder why this angered me so much and then I remember: it was such a long description. I love details, I love the way authors can spin and weave them to make the pictures clear inside readers heads but this was ridiculous. As a reader we don't alway have to know every little single tiny detail, especially if that detail isn't the biggest part of the story.
This book just wasn't for me. Maybe I read too many of Kings novels and just needed a break or maybe I need to wait and read it at a later time. Maybe one day I'll reread the book and find myself wondering why I hated it so much. But until then, I have to say I was disappointed and bored with the first few chapters of this book.
Fair warning my opinion is extremely biased because unfortunately I hated what I had read so much that I didn't even finish the book. I'm usually so adamant about finishing books and yet I had to divorce this book. I had too.
As usual King had amazing descriptions of the setting, characters, and the scenario. But...it was almost as if I was reading too much of a good thing, because this book had everything that I loved from Kings other stories. But for some reason this book had that times infinity and it became too much for me to handle. Almost too much detail, too much slow burn. It was taking forever for me to get out of chapter one.
There's this one little snippet that I remembered taking forever to read and it was the description of adult Eddie Kaspbrak's medicine cabinet. As a reader I would wonder why this angered me so much and then I remember: it was such a long description. I love details, I love the way authors can spin and weave them to make the pictures clear inside readers heads but this was ridiculous. As a reader we don't alway have to know every little single tiny detail, especially if that detail isn't the biggest part of the story.
This book just wasn't for me. Maybe I read too many of Kings novels and just needed a break or maybe I need to wait and read it at a later time. Maybe one day I'll reread the book and find myself wondering why I hated it so much. But until then, I have to say I was disappointed and bored with the first few chapters of this book.
I haven’t read a lot of King’s work but of what I’ve read so far, this has been my least favorite.
I wanted to believe that this book needed to be over 1,000 pages long, but it doesn’t. King goes into a crazy amount of detail on every storyline that I wish went into the character development instead. You could argue that Derry is more of a character than any of the actual characters. I think he must have intended all of these detailed side-storylines as character development; I felt like for having spent so much time with each of them I shouldn’t have mixed them up as easily as I did.
Maybe this is just my brain, but the names Eddie and Richie got easily confused for me. Same with Bill and Ben. Stan was such an afterthought for me that I questioned the point of including him at all, although I get that we needed the magic number 7. Mike and Ben were the most interesting characters to me; I wanted to love Bill as much as the others did, but never got there.
As for Beverly… ugh. I could write a whole review on her character alone. King has come a long way when it comes to writing women, and let this novel be a testament to where he began. Beverly is always beautiful, her fiery red hair is always blowing out behind her, her breasts are there… we get it. She goes from getting beaten by her father to getting beaten by her husband… we get it. I guess maybe that’s why I’m supposed to understand the scene where she invites each of them to have sex with her (as children). It would have been way cooler for the lead female character to be at least somewhat strong. Bev is 1000% a victim, a princess to be rescued.
I will say this: King writes a lot of really beautiful passages in here about growing up, getting old, friendship, and life in general. The book is worth it for these musings, and also for the really scary scenes (of which there are plenty). But as a novel, it leaves a lot to be desired — especially after thousands of pages.
I wanted to believe that this book needed to be over 1,000 pages long, but it doesn’t. King goes into a crazy amount of detail on every storyline that I wish went into the character development instead. You could argue that Derry is more of a character than any of the actual characters. I think he must have intended all of these detailed side-storylines as character development; I felt like for having spent so much time with each of them I shouldn’t have mixed them up as easily as I did.
Maybe this is just my brain, but the names Eddie and Richie got easily confused for me. Same with Bill and Ben. Stan was such an afterthought for me that I questioned the point of including him at all, although I get that we needed the magic number 7. Mike and Ben were the most interesting characters to me; I wanted to love Bill as much as the others did, but never got there.
As for Beverly… ugh. I could write a whole review on her character alone. King has come a long way when it comes to writing women, and let this novel be a testament to where he began. Beverly is always beautiful, her fiery red hair is always blowing out behind her, her breasts are there… we get it. She goes from getting beaten by her father to getting beaten by her husband… we get it. I guess maybe that’s why I’m supposed to understand the scene where she invites each of them to have sex with her (as children). It would have been way cooler for the lead female character to be at least somewhat strong. Bev is 1000% a victim, a princess to be rescued.
I will say this: King writes a lot of really beautiful passages in here about growing up, getting old, friendship, and life in general. The book is worth it for these musings, and also for the really scary scenes (of which there are plenty). But as a novel, it leaves a lot to be desired — especially after thousands of pages.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
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:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence
Moderate: Antisemitism
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes