Book Review: It by Stephen King

It by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It took me a long time to get through this book. The Three Musketeers took me a whole month, this took me a month and three weeks. I'm not entirely sure why, because I normally zip through even the longest Stephen King books.
First of all, I will start with the positives of It. Stephen King is a fantastic writer, there is no changing that. He could make even the boring, most mundane text interesting and vibrant. The events, characters and plot of It are all superb. The seven children who we meet throughout the book are brilliant. All of them are unique and have different, specific characteristics which make them enjoyable to read. Their relationships, which are important to the story are well thought out and believable. The idea, is also exceptional. The villain of the piece is Pennywise the clown, who can become what each child fears the most. Every twenty seven years he returns to Derry, Maine and kills several children. What's more, he can only be seen by children. The story follows the children in the fifties as they encounter Pennywise as eleven year olds, and in the eighties when they are in their late thirties.
I'm amazed that King can write in a stutter, an Irish and Mexican accent. All of these are believable and surprisingly readable.
There are only a few negatives, despite the amount of time it took me to read this book. The first is that King overcomplicates the ending. To avoid spoilers I'll just say, the bad guy is not what you expect. For me personally, I think Pennywise is much creepier than what's behind the mask. For a generation of people, King made clowns absolutely horrifying.
The other negative is the sexual content that appears near the end of the story. I think it's inappropriate and unnecessary considering the age of the protagonists. There must have been another way for the children to reconnect with each other than what King has written. If the children had been a little older, maybe I wouldn't have been as bothered, but I work with children of that age and they really are still children.
Overall then, three stars for a book that I was looking forward too, but ultimately disappointed by. I think I'll have a King break for a little while.

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