IT by Stephen King Review

Hi foreverBookers, 

I’m sorry that it’s been so long since you’ve heard from me! I’ve been busy, as well as reading the LONGEST book of my life (no kidding), “IT” by Stephen King! It was an okay book, I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to love it. I thought it would get a 3 or a 4 star rating.

3.5 Stars (4 on Goodreads)!

I read IT for a couple of readathons:

The Cardcaptor-a-thon - The Earthy Card - Read a book you find intimidating - IT is very intimidating because of its size!  - #12

I started reading IT for September’s Reading Rivalry so I can’t count it toward any of the reading prompts because it needed to be finished in the month of September, so I’ll count page points for how many pages I read in the month of November, which was 293 pages.

Your favourite prompt from a past Popsugar Reading Challenge - A book that’s more than 600 pages - IT, which is 1,156 pages long. I think I possibly did this prompt before but I lost my list and in compiling it again I couldn’t find the so here’s another book that fits another prompt, this time from the 2016 list. 

“IT” tells of the lives of about 10 characters from their childhood to their adulthood. Bill, our main character loses his brother George when George goes out into a flooded Maine with a paper boat and loses it in the sewers. George dies in the sewers when he goes to find the boat, but there’s a mystery surrounding just how he died. How did he die? You’ll have to read to find out. 

The other children include; Richie, Eddie, Beverly, Stanley, and Ben, and the bullies, Henry, Victor and Belch. These characters are side characters, as George becomes after the first interlude but they all play a significant role. For example, Beverly, the only female of “The Loser’s Club” has romances with a few members of the club. Ben is bullied for being severely overweight as a child. Eddie has breathing difficulties and Mike is black and is bullied because of that. Henry, Victor and Belch are the bullies that torment “The Loser’s Club” as children and adults. 

There are topics such as death, race, abuse, gender differences, weight as well as the horror aspect to “IT,” so if you’re sensitive to any of those individual things, maybe don’t pick this up or do some research before you start reading.“IT” was written in 1981-1985, so things were different then and maybe more accepted. A bit that I didn’t like so much was the treatment of gays but I understand that it was written that way because of the time it was written. I also don’t think I’ve read anything that the author took so long to write either, knowingly, anyway, but I guess such a long book won’t be written within the space of a year or two.    

Spoilers Below

After George’s death, the children have to try and learn to get on with their lives. For Bill this is especially hard as George was his little brother. He has a stutter throughout IT but I’d say that it gets worse after George dies. Bill is our main character, I’d say, so he speaks quite often in the book. It became annoying to read his parts for me because I had to read the same word several times. I couldn’t always understand what he was saying either, which I guess is the point but it was still annoying and lessened my enjoyment of the book, slightly. I, myself speak with a bit of a stutter, so I felt for Bill even though it was annoying to read. Listening to the audiobook might have been better for this aspect.

The bits that I really liked in IT were the parts with Pennywise the Clown, who really only appeared four or five times. I expected him to be in the story throughout! Some of the children had different depictions of IT. Bill and Ben, no pun intended for English speaking audiences, saw Pennywise, Eddie saw a leper, Beverly saw an old haggard woman, Mike saw a bird, Richie saw a werewolf, and the bullies saw Pennywise. Pennywise is certainly the most renowned version of IT in other media as well as the book. He’s the character featured on the movie posters too. I’d say that Pennywise was the most evil and wanted to do the most harm. 

“He looked up and saw Pennywise the Clown standing at the top of the lefthand staircase, looking down at him. His face was white with greasepaint. His mouth bled lipstick in a killer’s grin. There were empty sockets where his eyes should have been. He held a bunch of balloons in one hand and a book in the other.

       Not he. It.”

This is from when Ben, as an adult sees Pennywise standing in the library. This was one of my favourite parts because we can clearly see that Ben is still scared by the words that King uses, “killer’s grin.” This is the depiction I know is most often associated with IT, the killer clown with the balloons. 

I enjoyed reading Ben’s parts the most because he seemed very misunderstood by the other characters. When the book starts and the characters don’t know each other, we see Ben as a friendless child. It’s only when Bill comes across him alone, at school that they start to hang out and get to know each other. Ben was a lot like me as a child so I think this is why I felt a connection to him. I also liked reading Bill’s parts because he was very central to the plot. Beverly, as I’ve said was the only female in the Loser’s Club so that’s why I felt a connection to her. Beverly is abused by her husband, Tom in the first half of the book. This wasn’t horrible for me to read but it might be triggering to someone that’s gone through abuse.    

I’m interested to watch the movies of IT now. I’ll probably only watch the newer ones, 2018 and 2019’s.  

What happens to the characters in the end? Who survives and just what or who is IT? You’ll have to read to find out!  

Stand by for my next review, coming soon!