Review: 11/22/63

11/22/63 by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Admittedly, I picked up this audiobook intending to have some way to kill time in the car. I got the recommendation from a friend without even looking at the book description. It was available at the library and Stephen King, while not always my favorite, could at least guarantee good writing. I’m not sure I would recommend going blind into this book like I did, but I would definitely recommend reading this one.

Jake is a school teacher who is a bit adrift in his own life. He recently divorced and his star pupil has graduated. An acquaintance, the local diner owner, ends up phoning him randomly while he is wrapping up his last day of school grading. That phone call ends up altering the course of, well, everything for him. As you’re reading the book, there is definitely a little bit of “where is this going,” but it all pulls itself together after many many hours.

Overall, this is the story of “what would you do if you could go back in time (to a very specific time) and change history?” The timing is right to save JFK, but there are quite a few events that he impacts along the way. With no idea of how many changes the world could take, why they are able to go back in time at all, and what impact it will have on Jake, this story had me completely hooked. There are moments of sheer panic and terror that I found myself hesitant to even take a break from reading during. I was so completely invested in Jake, no matter how many bad decisions he made along the way. I’m not really a big time travel fan, but this book was really phenomenal. Everyone knows that this author has some issues with endings. This ending, however, answered all my questions but still left the door open for happiness.


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