Spooky Saturday is an original weekly meme to spotlight spooky books I’ve read or am currently reading.
Two Spooky Saturdays ago, I talked about how I was biting the bullet and reading IT by Stephen King… despite the fact that it’s 1200 pages… and I’m terrified of clowns. I thought I’d give you an update on how that’s going!
When I started this book, my goal was to read 100 pages of it every day so that I’m not spending months trying to get through this book.
That didn’t happen.
Summertime is here, the godkids have t-ball, baseball, and softball games, and I spend a good chunk of my time on the river when I’m not at work. So this has become a weekend project. I’ll be reading it Friday and Saturday nights and hopefully will have it finished before Pride season gets in full swing.
The last update I posted here, I was about 200 pages in. After this past weekend, I am now almost 600 pages in and more terrified than ever!
Taken from my review of the first 200 pages: The first two hundred pages sets up the back story for the book. The story starts of with the death of Georgie Denbrough in 1957 at the hands of IT, a seemingly demonic force that manifests as a clown and lives in the sewers. Skipping forward to 1985, we witness another murder and another manifestation of IT. From there, we met the adult characters of the book and learn a snip of each of their lives after they get a call to come back to Derry, Maine… because as children they made an oath to return if IT ever did… and IT has come back.
Picking up from there, King delves into the past. We’re transported back to the summer of 1958 and see where each child meets IT for the first time. It was interesting to see that every character saw IT just a little different- a clown, a mummy, a werewolf, a giant bird, a leper, as a voice in the drain. King also shows us little snippets of other children’s disappearances and how that contributed to the curfew. It’s curious to me how the adults react to the disappearances. They are, of course, scared for their children and want them to come home well before dark. But it’s almost as if they have accepted that IT is as much a part of Derry as any other citizen.
I liked that King is still involving “real life” problems with the supernatural. The book talks about Ben being bullied, Bev’s abusive father, the change in Bill’s parents after Georgie’s death, and it touches on the fact that Eddie maybe isn’t a sick as his mother wants him to be.
After the children all have their stories told, we’re thrust back into 1985 and see all of the children, now adults, heading back to Derry in hopes of defeating Pennywise yet again. The curious thing is that none of them can quite remember what happened that day or much of that entire summer. The longer they are in Derry, the more memories they recover.
The Loser Gang reunites at a restaurant in Derry and fall back into easy friendship. They discuss IT, their lack of memories, and how the town has changed. At the end of the meal, they all get a grisly surprise in their fortune cookies. It makes me wonder just how much IT actually touched them… none of the other adults seem to see what’s going on… so why do they?
What has IT got in store for them this time?
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