Salem's Lot Readalong Wrap-up

Oh what fun it is to read Stephen King books with other people. This month Trish, Care, and I co-hosted a readalong of Salem's Lot. We had so much fun! Sometimes I forget what an addictive writer King is. I had to put the book down for about a week at one point because I couldn't stop reading and was getting too far ahead. 

Those of you who sent me your address received a set of vampire teeth earlier this month. I loved seeing everyone's photos with them! Before I get to my thoughts on the book, here's just a few of our scary poses. 

Salem’s Lot

By Stephen King

★★★★☆

A small town, a creepy old house, mysterious deaths, this one hit all the right notes. The vampires felt very old school to me. There were definitely no sparkles. 

One thing I really loved about the book is that it struck me as pretty realistic. I felt like this is probably how things would go down if it really happened in a small town. People would be unlikely to believe the truth even if they saw it with their own eyes. They would also have almost no idea how to handle it. Some might know the general superstitions, but would feel silly waving a crucifix around.

Like all of King’s novels, it’s the characters that suck you in. He gives you just enough time to get attached to a few of them before the bodies start to drop. The plot was scary and suspenseful, but it wasn't gory. There were very few parts with where death was described in any detail at all and I really appreciated that. My level for gore is very low, but it was just scary enough to be perfect.

BOTTOM LINE: Definitely makes the list top ten of King books for me. The Stand, The Green Mile, On Writing, and Different Seasons are a few I liked more, but I really liked this one. It was just the right amount of scary for me.

 
WRAP-UP POSTS:
Kay's Reading Life 
The Friday Friends 
Word Hits 
Care's Online Book Club 
 
(Leave a link in the comments to your post and I'll add you in!)

Photos by participants 

Salem's Lot Readalong

Who is ready to be scared silly? I don't remember who exactly started the Stephen King readalongs (Trish? Jill?), but the first big King novel I ever read was The Stand and I wouldn't have done it without a group. 

This month Trish, Care, and I are co-hosting a readalong of Salem's Lot. I might be crazy to do this while pregnant (I already scare easily), but Trish is pregnant too, so if she can do it then so can I! 

This will be a laid back readalong. I will definitely do a wrap up post at the end of October, but I think we will mainly be sharing thoughts on twitter with the hashtag #SalemAlong as we go. Thanks to Trish for the awesome button that she made! Feel free to use it on your blogs, twitter, or instagram.

If you'd like to join in the fun, which you definitely should, just add a link to your blog in the comments. Also, send your address to my email (avidreader25 [at] gmail.com) and I'll send you something silly for participating. Jill started that trend with sunglasses for The Shining and clown noses for It. 

So here's go nothing. You can always put it in the freezer if you get too scared. 

11/22/63

 

11/22/63

by Stephen King

★★★★

 

Jake is an English teacher living a relatively nondescript life in 2011. Then he’s introduced to the “rabbit hole” a time-travel portal that spits you out in 1958. He’s told he needs to stop the Kennedy assassination and the saga that follows is a long road through the late ‘50s and early ‘60s through the eyes of a modern day man.

 

Technically the Kennedy assassination is the central plot, but it’s really about so much more than that. King has such a gift for crafting characters you care about deeply. He also managed to make me nostalgic for a time period that I never even knew. It's hard to explain exactly what it is about this novel that's so romantically nostalgic. King reminisces about sock hops and milkshakes, but it’s more about the atmosphere of small-town camaraderie than anything concrete.

 

Even though the book looks at that era through rose colored glasses, he also acknowledges the problems from that time period. There is racism and censorship in schools, there’s prejudice against anyone whose life veers outside the declared “norm.” King doesn’t gloss over those elements and that made the plot much more realistic.

 

There's a lovely cadence that the plot of the whole book follows, a tide of swells up and down, settling in new places, following his path to Lee Harvey Oswald and hitting roadblocks along the way. He inevitably must create a new life in the past and that complicates things further. The romance in the book can be a bit sappy at times, but it wasn’t overly so. There are also a slew of other characters that add depth to each scene. I loved Mimi a Texas librarian and Mike a jock with some serious acting chops.

 

Throughout the book King reiterates his belief that the past harmonizes. He says it over and over again, reminding the reader that the past finds patterns and repeats itself in ways that mirror other experiences. It was an interesting concept and though it also meant the book has some repetitive elements that grow a bit tiresome. It was an unavoidable facet of the plot since that’s part of the point of it all. I do think there are definite sections that could have been cut, but no one reads Stephen King because he’s short-winded!

 

It’s funny; I couldn’t help but think of the novel “Time and Again” over and over as I read this one. Then in the Afterward King says that’s his favorite time travel story of all time and in many ways it inspired this one.

 

BOTTOM LINE: A big, fat summer read with love and loss and plenty of twists. This isn’t a fast read, but it’s a good one. Sink into it and explore the past with Jake.

 

“Everyone knows that for such an unforgiving thing, time is uniquely malleable.”

 

**SIDENOTE: The audiobook version of this was excellent. The only part that bugged me was an off Jimmy Stewart-style voice the narrator used for one character towards the end of the book.**

 

Also, I am so glad I read “IT” right before this. I had no idea there was a plot overlap, but I definitely wouldn’t have appreciated some parts of the book if I hadn’t read “IT.”

It

 

It
by Stephen King
★★★★

In the last year I’ve ventured out of my comfort zone and read a few of Stephen King’s well-known novels. Last year when the IT-Along was happening I chickened out and was too scared to read It. But after reading some of their reviews, especially Trish’s and Care's, I caved and listened to the audio version.  

In 1958 seven kids, all outsiders for one reason or another form a tightknit group of friends. They soon realize that something sinister is lurking beneath the streets of their Maine hometown. As kids begin disappearing they decide they need to fight back. Then 27 years later the group is called back home when the evil rears its ugly head again.  

This creepy book is well known for its villain, Pennywise the horrifying clown, but in my opinion Pennywise is not the scariest part of the book. I think the truly scary scenes often didn’t dealt with “It” at all. They were the ones that show what fellow human beings are capable of doing to each other. Like the scenes with Beverly's father and her husband, and the completely twisted bullies, those were the scariest moments for me. It’s easy to dismiss a crazy clown as fiction, but the other scenes with abusive husbands and sociopathic teens were much more terrifying. 

 

The beauty of this book is that despite the murders that are happening, a few misfits can band together and support each other as friends. The scenes in 1958 reminded me of King’s novella “The Body” (which was turned into the movie Stand By Me.) Each of the kids feels so real and relatable. When we meet them again as adults they have become different people, but even being in the same room brings out their playful camaraderie again.  

 

There were three parts that I think should've been cut and maybe turned into short stories elsewhere: the fire in the black spot, the gang from Indiana who wants the ammo and the homicidal lumberjack. It's not that they are badly written; they just completely screwed up the pacing of the novel and took me out of the story. I know the point was to show how long “It” has been around influencing the people of Derry, but it was a bit of a jarring jump for me. Sometimes I wonder if King’s editor just sits in his office playing Tetris all day, because almost all of his books could do with some serious editing.

 

I loved the first half much more than the second, not because the second half isn’t good, but because it’s so dark and scary. King is an incredible storyteller, but because of that every horror scene is just that much more terrifying. I've never been so scared of balloons in my life until I read this. Also, the infamous “bonding” scene when the kids are young is just weird and completely unnecessary. I knew about it before reading the book, but it was still bizarre. 

 

The real reason this novel is so scary is that IT takes on the guise of whatever scares you the most. It is the embodiment of your fear and really what is scarier than that? It made me think a lot about fear and where it comes from, what it makes us do, how it controls us, the power and strength it takes to overcome it. It also made me think about this incredible video of two women overcoming their fear of flying.

 

BOTTOM LINE: A seriously scary book, this one is not my favorite King novel (that would be The Green Mile and The Stand), but he tells an enthralling story.

SIDE NOTE: The audio version of this is so good! Yes, Ritchie’s voices becomes grating pretty fast, but it was just beyond excellent.