Where do I even start with IT?

I never had any desire to read this book.  However, a friend recommended it to me, and then I couldn’t resist.  It’s super long.  It took me about two months to read, and I only read it at night before going to bed.  It was NOT a good bedtime story.  I don’t think I had many nightmares though.

My problem with Stephen King has always been his extreme attention to detail.  His books are mostly all long.  However, this book really needed to be long! “It” drew me right in.  The beginning is terrifying.  Every part that I read made me want to read more.  I’d be up to all hours of the night reading this book.  The terror continues throughout, because of the random nature of the victims.

The story flips between the beginning (for these characters at least), and the present.  We learn about each main character as a kid, and as a grownup, but not in a linear way.  Each story inspires a flashback, or a retelling of an event.  By the end, you’re absolutely rooting for the “good guys”, and although most of the “bad guys” really are bad, they’re also manipulated by “It”.

There is a lot of science fiction-y elements to this story, as you can probably imagine, since it centers around a clown that lives in the sewers and kills people.  That’s what makes it so horrifying, because the sewers are all around us.

By the way – if you don’t like spiders, don’t skip the (almost) end, but prepare yourself!