Betta

When I first started reading this I had some doubts, I had only ever read Needful Things by Stephen King before and that had been a struggle. The fact that, let's be honest, King's books can only be described as ‘hefty chonkers', a book like Needful things starts slow and then leads to one final, big climax meant it was very difficult to get through. Now, 11/22/63 is different. Incredibly so. It really throws you in the deep end and is full of crescendos all contributing to the grand finale of the novel. Each character is so well thought out and complex in its own way it is almost impossible to think that they did not exist in real life (aside from, of course, those taken directly from history such as JFK or Lee Oswald). The absurdity of the novel makes it impossible to set down and even more so to forget. I was also pleasantly surprised at the romantic aspect of this novel. From other readers I had heard that King tends to focus more on the physical than the emotional, something I definitely picked up in Needful Things. This is why the relationship between Jake/George and Sadie shocked me, in the best way possible. As a romantic at heart, I cannot deny I shed many tears over their love story.