'IT' by Stephen King.

' -..honestly, it`s gonna be like...one of the most satisfying reading experiences of your life.

-Is it scary?

-Yeah, sure..but it`s not just a scary book. It`s like Moby-Dick. It`s about everything. I mean..you`re gonna be so wrapped up in it you`re gonna be crying by the time you get to the end of it. ' - Stuck In Love (the movie).

This phrase, said by Nat Wolff`s character in the movie, was what put the idea of reading this book into my head in the first place. Mostly because I love when a book is described this way, and also because I really enjoyed watching the movie and thought (and still do) there couldn`t be any wrong information in it. ;) (yeah little advert for the movie as well!)

So this book is the first book by Stephen King that I actually finished. The first one I started reading years ago was 'The Shining', and it was for my extra english class. I`m not very good at reading something for a class, even if it`s by such an amazing writer as Stephen King. Somehow I just feel forced to do it, and I don`t enjoy it as much as I could. Although I liked the story I didn`t finish it. But still planning on it. So then I came across 'IT'. Firstly I briefly noticed and didn`t pay much attention to the fact that this book was SO HUGE. My copy is 1 376 pages long, and it`s one of the very few books I have that have this amount of pages. So I was very excited to dive in and get lost in it. Only when I reached 1000th page I got a bit tired of it. I still don`t really know why. The plot is amazing; the writing, as you can imagine, is grrreat as well, so I don`t know what happened...anyhow I decided to wait a little and postpone finishing it. After a few months I picked it up again, and I was very happy because I missed the characters and the whole story a lot. I was glad I had almost 400 pages left to read. And I finished it in two days.

I can`t tell you how much I enjoyed the story. And it wasn`t so much for the actual story of Pennywise The Clown that got me. It was the story of a true friendship. There are seven characters in the story. The book is divided on three parts which are kind of present day, the past and the interlude part. We meet our characters in the 'past' part where they are only children of 11-12 years old. We see them as separate people, and then we see how they meet each other, and how they grow stronger together, and how their friendship starts to develop. In the 'present' time we learn of their adult lives, what they do, what families and jobs they have and all that. We realize that they`ve lost the track of each other and gone their separate ways. And then six phone calls bring them back together. 

The most amazing part about this is that you kind of feel that you`ve known these characters all their lives, and it makes you very attached to them. You kind of feel like you`re a member of the Loser Club (as they called themselves) as well. You grow to love all the characters so much that by the end of the book you feel like someone rips them out of your heart. And it hurts SO MUCH. The story of their relationship as a group and between each of them outside the group is truly amazing. It makes you feel warm about your friends as well. And again by the end of the book you just wanna hold every one of your real friends and every one of the characters because the feels basically tear you apart.

What I loved about the group of characters is that they`re all completely different people who somehow work together really well. You can see different types of characters, and I`m sure everyone can find at least one they can relate to. And I don`t know about you, but I love when this happens in books. And I also love when writers show us how different people with different backgrounds, religion, skin colour, mindset, gender and even sexuality, at some sense, can be brought together, and accept each other, and truly love each other, and be best friends. I think that`s the main thing that made me completely fall in love with this book.

(this fanart is do amazing I couldn`t resist putting it here. I don`t own it, found it on tumblr and I love it so much my heart hurts.)

The 'scary' storyline is great too, it`s even kind of philosophical. It`s basically about fear. How children and adults deal with fear and what are people afraid of, and how these fears can affect their lives and all that. There`s obviously a lot more to it, and I guess every reader can find different interpretation to the main storyline. All in all it`s really great and at times creepy, as there obviously is a monster that represents all those fears. It`s not as creepy as I thought it would be though. When we hear the name of Stephen King we immediately think of the most frightening things on the planet Earth and stuff. I don`t know about his other books but this one is only a little bit scary and more mysterious than creepy. At least it was for me. (And it doesn`t in any way spoil the reading experience may I say).

The ending was shocking, honestly. Until the last page I waited for them to figure something out about their memory (I don`t think it`s a spoiler?), but they didn`t. And the fact crushed and destroyed me, and I was an ugly crying mess, and I couldn`t stop crying for a long time. So this is my warning: if you`re an emotional person get ready to be torn apart by your emotional side, because Stephen King apparently knows how to drain you mentally for a couple of days. 

I had different feelings throughout the book. I`m not gonna lie I was getting bored at times, and there were parts in there that I wanted to skip. But I still loved it very much, and it got me right in my heart and soul. I definitely will re-read it some time, and I recommend it to all. Despite the length of it it was, indeed, one of the most satisfying reading experiences of my life.

Tell me if you`ve read this book, and if you liked it or not? And have you read any other books by Stephen King, any suggestions? (I, myself, really wanna read 11.22.63. They say it`s a great one, and in one of his latest interviews Stephen said that his favourite books, of all the ones he`s written, are 'IT' and '11.22.63.' so I`m most excited:) ) xx

__________________________________________________________

(I do not own any pictures from this post. All credits go to the owner!)