IT

It is widely considered to be one of King’s best works, and for good reason. At over a thousand pages, it’s definitely his most involving story. A simple story about good and evil, It jumps back and forth in time between a group of adults and their children selves as they try to defeat an ancient evil that has been murdering the children of their home town for thousands of years. Considering this book can be used alternatively as a door stop, this story can appear to be a bit of a grind due to its simplicity, but King somehow manages to avoid this problem by dedicating a majority of the pages to character development. These characters are perhaps King’s most believable, human characters. They love, they hate, they struggle through problems we have all had. And this is just the adults; their childhood selves are just as beautifully written and King’s passages on the growing pains of puberty as well as the profound beauty of a child’s look on the world are painfully accurate and poignant. It’s as if King never grew up. We truly care for these characters and King knows this. It also contains the most scares per page in a King book. Some of the scenes between the entity called It (which appears in a variety of grotesque forms including a maniacal clown, an ancient mummy, and a giant spider) and the children will deeply unnerve any veteran of horror literature. It’s clear King is having fun trying to unsettle his readers and he is at the top of his game when he’s having fun. If you have the time this tome requires, I highly suggest starting your King journey with this book. It contains all of the classic aspects of King: small-town life, good vs evil, and well-developed characters. This is classic King at his most mature and most unsettling and the experience is well worth the time requirements.