Review: It by Stephen King

Like finally, I’ve finished reading It. 1.4k pages in total. I think it’s fair enough that I took a month to finish it. I gotta say, I do have high hopes on this book. Based on the good reviews and high rating of it in Goodreads, it’s not surprising to have high expectation of it. I’ve watched the movie, it was good. After reading three-quarter of the book, however, all I can say is, the movie is nothing like the book. To be honest, I am even disappointed because the movie skipped so many details and only a very small fraction of the book was played in the movie.

Back to talking about the book, since this isn't a movie review. Once again, this is a spoiler-free review. So, do continue reading.

It is a creepy story. A very detailed story. One that has more than a dozen back stories and subplots. It started off as five stars for me. And then, it just kind of dwindle into 2 or 3 stars.

If you are/were following my social media, you would have seen that I kept saying how scary it is. Truth be told, some parts were truly scary initially and it is because of these parts that made me not being able to put it down. But when it happens too many times, I get used to it. At a few occasions, it was particularly hard for me to get through. By the time I got to 600 pages, I just felt numb and nothing quite surprise me anymore.

This book is too long. There are a few chapters dedicated to how the town, Derry, was torn apart after It was defeated (don’t act like you don’t know It will not be killed). These chapters are detailed to the point where the falling of each and every building of the town is described. I just skimmed through because I really couldn’t care less about the collapse. Plus, it’s not like it’s relevant and necessary to the main story.

Another thing about this book that I loathe, the dialogue, especially the ones where an accent or slang was used. It’s so darn hard to read and understand the deliberate misspelled words. Every time I saw a whole paragraph of it, I just find it so painful to read.

The worst part of the book is the ending. It’s so disheartening when everything after 1.2k pages is so f*cking anticlimax. I know that, It is going to die one way or another. But not like that after all these pages!?!? I want to know. Why did It come to this planet in the first place? Who or what is this Turtle? What/How did It feed on by killing thousands of children? So many back stories but none is about the details of these mystical creatures.

All in all, I think, the story could have been effectively told in probably 500 pages, at most, 700 pages. 1.4k pages of this is plainly too much. I understand that, back stories are important for a book like this but sometimes, too many of it is not going to do any justice to the book.

One undeniable fact is that, Stephen King writes very well but I’m sorry, this book just don't work for me. I think I’m falling under the unpopular opinion again because everyone else seems to have really enjoyed this book.

Rating: ★★

*****Spoilers ahead (Do not read this if you don’t want to be spoilt)

This book really shows how f^cked up Stephen King is. An orgy, seriously? Oh, just because the 11 year old kids can’t find their way out of the tunnels and drains, they decided to gang-bang just so they can feel ‘connected’ again, in order to find the way out? I can deal with abhorrent scene as long as it can be justified. But, this is total BS. No one can tell me how normal this is because it isn’t. Plus, it has nothing to do with the main part of the story. NOTHING. If this book is trying to be an outrageous one then good job, it is after this scene.

Since I mentioned that the story could have been shorter, I’m going to talk about some unnecessary and irrelevant back stories:

1. The fact that all of the children has no children when they grow up. Was there an actual explanation of this being related to the main story?

2. The description of Tom (Beverly’s husband) beating Beverly’s best-friend. Totally unnecessary to the main story. After talking so much about Tom, where is Tom?

3. The scene where Patrick helped Henry to masturbate. Mind you, they are 11 y/o pre-teen. Once again, it has nothing to do with the story but further proves King is disturbing.

4. A whole chapter dedicated to how Patrick grew up a psychopath, killing his baby brother and torturing animals. Ultimately, it was unnecessary and led nowhere.

So yeah. These backstories are probably the most psychopathy and pointless stories I’ve ever read. Worst of all, It isn't even a freaking clown. It merely takes the form of clown because no-one-knows-why. In the end, It was a gigantic spider that laid its evil spawns. THAT’S IT. After all the pages, I’m reading a bunch of kids trying to kill a TALKING SPIDER. UGH.