11/22/63 in WACKY READING CHALLENGES

Mar 09, 2013 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: library, concierge, strong-women, books-about-books, 20th-century, historical-fiction, own, texas, audio

Audio book performed by Craig Wasson, with an afterword by the author.
4****

Jake Epping is a high-school English teacher, who also teaches adults seeking their GEDs. One of those adults is Harry Dunning, the school janitor, who is obviously “slow” and walks with a limp. The essay he writes describing the “The Day That Changed My Life” stuns Jake. So when his friend Al Templeton reveals that there is a portal to the past in his pantry – a “rabbit hole” that will take the traveler back to Sept 9, 1 Audio book performed by Craig Wasson, with an afterword by the author.
4****

Jake Epping is a high-school English teacher, who also teaches adults seeking their GEDs. One of those adults is Harry Dunning, the school janitor, who is obviously “slow” and walks with a limp. The essay he writes describing the “The Day That Changed My Life” stuns Jake. So when his friend Al Templeton reveals that there is a portal to the past in his pantry – a “rabbit hole” that will take the traveler back to Sept 9, 1958 at 11:58 a.m. – Jake decides to try to change Harry Dunning’s history. But Al has a larger, more important, historical event in mind; he just has to convince Jake to take it on.

The cover art and the title really tell the reader up front that the focus of this novel will be the Kennedy assassination. But King takes his sweet time getting there. Jake will have to live in the past from Sept 9, 1958 to Fall 1963 if he’ll have any chance to stop Oswald (or whoever it was who pulled the trigger, or conspired to do so). Among other things, he’ll have to actually determine whether Oswald was acting alone, or was just the “patsy” he claimed to be. But in those intervening years, Jake will find work and will meet and come to care for a variety of people – students, fellow teachers, neighbors, and one very special librarian.

I’ll admit I was a bit frustrated that it took King so long to get to the critical events of November 1963. I knew he had to have a good reason for this, but I wasn’t seeing it and I grew impatient. This is NOT to say that the book is slow. Far from it. King is a master at pacing a thriller to keep the reader turning pages. But if he told me one more time that “the past is obdurate” … well I was going to have to throw something at the CD player. However, I grew to care about all the events Jake experienced long before he got to Dallas. From the slang used to the fashions of the day and on to the small details, such as the price of gasoline, King immerses the reader in the “land of ago” and gives us a chance to recognize how very different that time was from 2011. He forces us to think about “what might have been” and “where might we be today” if only …

However convoluted and long the journey, I’m glad I went along. I was in tears (yes, in a Stephen King novel!) at the end of Chapter 31. I really wish he had ended it there. This is a novel that cries out for an ambiguous ending. The last chapter – Citizen of the Century – seemed like an afterthought, and while it was nice to have some of the loose ends tied up, for this reader the impact of Chapter 31 was lessened.

Craig Wasson was superb performing this audio. He even did a fair impersonation of real figures (Walter Cronkite and President John F Kennedy specifically), and had reasonably good regional accents. I also really appreciated that King read the audio of his afterword. The story was a sort of personal one for him, having lived through the events of that fateful day, and wondered “what if…”

(Review updated on re-read: July 2025)
...more

18 likes · Like · see review

Apr 09, 2012 Tien rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own, time-travel, read-on-kobo, science-fiction, favorites, moving-mt-2015, mm-16

I love love love this book! I’ve only read a handful of Stephen King’s books as horror isn’t my cup of tea so I’ve primarily read his fantasy works plus a few of the ‘horror’ stories (horror in quotation as I try to pick ones that aren’t too scary for me). What’s to love about 11.22.63? Firstly, it’s time travel –my most favourite kind of story! I love the setting (late 50s / early 60s in US) and I just adore the many possibilities, the uncertainties, and cause & effect etc. There are so much to ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Nov 15, 2014 Nancy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, america, alternative-history, time-travel

What would happen to the world if JFK hadn't been assassinated? This was a question which Jake Epping was asked to face seriously when his friend Al admitted that he had discovered a way to step back in time, back to 1958. Al, dying of lung cancer, tasked Jake with going back and trying to stop Lee Harvey Oswald but it was no simple task. As Jake observed on multiple occasions, the past is obdurate. It doesn't want to be changed. Spending 5 years in the past preparing to stop that momentous even ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Nov 28, 2019 Katharine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, imagine-that

My first King novel. Soooooo good!

4 likes · Like · see review

Jan 21, 2014 Karen ♐ rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-audio-book, read-ibooks

This book is extremely long but if you can make your way through it, it's actually really good. Jake is going back to the past to try and kill Oswald before he can kill Kennedy. The past keeps throwing road blocks in his way. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 01, 2019 Jody rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: aty-2019

This book ... I liked it. I really did, but man ... there was so much that I didn't like about it at the same time.

The Stephen King bloat. The bland characters. The repetition - I swear to God if I never see the word obdurate again, I'll be ecstatic. The whole harmonies thing. The romance - I just didn't feel it., but, then again, that could also be because I just don't like his characters.

The idea that JFK's assassination somehow changed the world. That seems hyperbolic. (view spoiler) ...more

1 like · Like · see review