After reading the Secret Garden, on pure impulse, I decided to pick up Stephen King’s latest novel 11/22/63. All I can say is that the novel has me in a tight grip and refuses to let go until I have reached the very last page. I am by no means a Stephen King fan-girl. In fact far from it, as just a few months prior, I tried to get into “Bag of Bones” and found myself unable to immerse myself in the story. Let me tell you, I simply LOVE a great horror novel or who-dun-it mystery! King just didn’t do it for me — until his latest book, that is.
Truth-be-told, I only wanted to read the classics this go ’round but the description of the book intrigued me enough to read a sample of it. The sample had me hooked, so I knew it was a “must have”. If you enjoy a little bit of nostalgic history (and i’m all about nostalgic history), along with a little bit of sci-fi, slight horror and a good story — READ. THIS. BOOK. The Honeywell Barcode Scanners in the world must be going off-the-chain because I cannot imagine that this book sits on a bookstore (or Kindle) shelf for very long!
What I love most about this story is that I am able to get lost in the storyline. I feel like I am truly experiencing 1958 (and beyond) as the character is experiencing it. King’s style in this novel is so clean and the focus of the story stays on track. One of my frustrations of some of his other novels, is that he gets too detail-oriented (so much so that he has a tendency to get off track and tell another story in the middle of the main story) and introduces too many characters too quickly. However, I can definitely say that he doesn’t do that with this novel and if he does– it completely melds with the story and keeps you “in the moment”.
I am normally not a book-review kind of person, but I was so impressed with this novel, that I am actually thinking of perhaps adding his other novels to my reading list. I thought I wrote him off forever (and was kind of sad about it because people seem to love Stephen King) — but now I have new resolve to read his earlier works!

