Started this book on the 21st of July exactly so it took me exactly a month to finish. Very powerful beautiful book. I’ve started several King books in the past but never quite finished, so I was determined to finish IT so that I could enjoy the book and the sequel movie in September. This is probably one of the best well written horror books I’ve read. By the end of the first act I felt like I could touch and taste Derry, the cursed hometown of the 7 main characters, and the pacing of the horror scenes was grotesque.


Pros: The themes about childhood innocence and the magic of children, love and acceptance, overcoming ones fear, revisiting ones past to make sense of the future, as well as the social commentary at play were very powerful and well written. They helped make the story the beauty that it is. The ending scene made me cry almost, and for just that I’d read it all over again.

Cons:

Somewhere down the middle of the book however I almost fell out of interest for the book. Some people will laud his writing and plot build up. Others will scorn him for the way he uses up 400 pages of the book just to drum up character backstories and plot sequences that often do not need to be inserted into the page. Heck only until I got to page 800 did I really feel like there was an actual MOVING plot. A lot of the story flickers back and forth between 1958, when the kids were still kids, and 1985, when they kids become adults and return to fight IT, so there’s a lot of reminisce scenes.

Overall I definitely recommend this book, just make a schedule for reading this book, and you’ll be finished with it in no time.