It by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It, a third-person singular pronoun, takes a lot of responsibility as the entire title of Stephen King’s 1985 doorstop novel. These days, it’s a story that is widely known. Kids in the 1950s in the book it’s 1958, fight a shape-shifting monster that reverts to the shape of a clown when it can’t scare the kids. And then in 1985, all the kids return to their hometown to fight the monster again, this time as adults. When the way you beat the monster in the first place, is essentially an extension of a child’s imagination and play, the very idea that they can come back at all to find it again is almost out of the question. Mike Hanlon knows this, and even though he knows he will probably get some of his friends killed, he calls them all back.
It is a story of intense friendship and the bonds that kids can make and honor as adults. I was going to say I don’t know about friends from when I was 12 or 13 as the kids are in the book, but that is not true. Online, I still have friends from that age who, if I had a strange contract with, to come back and try to kill a monster that was haunting Doraville, GA, I probably would return to help them.
I read the book for the first time when I was the age of the kids. And I’ve read it several times since then, including when I was the age of the adults in the book. Now that I’m 50 I have another perspective on it. Each time I read this book something new pops out. Details emerge, parts of the story get clearer and clearer, and overall I think I enjoy it more each time I go back to dip into it again.
There are a certain number of aspects of the book that would not fly today. And that’s true but overall, if you’re interested in seeing a story where good friends connect in a very meaningful way, It is your book.
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