Horror tales
New English Library
1987
Hardcover
1116
To the children, the town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry, Maine was just their home town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A good place to live.
It was the children who saw - and felt - what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing . . .
The adults, knowing better, knew nothing.
Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once more to confront IT as IT stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality.
WrensReads Review:
“Monsters are real, and ghost are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
This book is quite literally a monster in itself. It’s intimidating, it’s thick with descriptions and characters and amazing quotes. It has more than a dozen underlining meanings.
My favorite thing about this book is the concept. Most people believe this is some person dressed up as a clown going around and terrorizing kids. That’s about 25% of what this book is, and most of that is wrong.
First IT isn’t a person dressed up as a clown. IT is a demon taken the shape of a clown. And IT isn’t just “there”. IT didn’t decide to creep on children and just kill people and kids for the hell of it (wait, no that’s kind of what he did). IT haunts not a room, not a basement, not a house, not a hotel, but the entirety of a town.
That baffles me. Why hasn’t anyone ever thought that something might have made a whole town it’s home instead of keeping itself to a tiny little house? Like if I was a demon or a ghost or whatever, I would haunt EVERYONE. YOU WILL NOT BE EXCLUDED.
“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful too”
So there are two different stories being told. One from a group of kids trying to defeat IT and then years later when the same-kids-now-adults are going after the recently-spotted-and-recently-decided-to-come-back-and-have-fun-again-and-by-fun-I-mean-wreak-mayhem IT. You see where they have been, where they are, how they got there, and what they are leaving behind when they go back to their home town (all because of a kids promise).
One back-pedals a lot in their developments, one break free of their chain and ball, another fights back in an abusive relationship and another can’t handle their fears and takes the cowards way out.
“You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.”
I used to be terrified of clowns. My then-boyfriend thought this fact was hilarious. He made me sit down and watch this horrible movie when we were in high school. Lucky for me, the DVD was broke and we didn’t have to watch it.
But my dearly beloved neighbor-turned-great-friend had other plans. He decided to dress up as a clown and stand at my window-of-a-front door and wave to me creepily. To this day, then-boyfriend blames me for the shot hearing in one of his ears (we were on the phone when I was screaming) and this has become of the my favorite memories with be deceased friend.
I honestly think he is the reason I decided to suck it up, and concur this horror of a book. I wanted to read it before the new movie came out, but I no longer see clowns as something absolutely horrifying.
And honestly? It wasn’t that scary of a book. It was morbid and gory and it plays mind tricks on you, but I didn’t think it was that scary. It was a deep book. It’s definitely a Stephen King book. Like, if I didn’t know who wrote it, you could 100% tell by the writing style. Which, no offense Mr. King, isn’t one of my favorite styles. I do adore (is that the right word?) his story telling though.
I do recommend reading this book before seeing the movie. Well, I am always, 100% for reading the book before seeing a glimpse of any movie. But Stephen King put so much detail into this book that they can’t possibly put all of this into a movie without twelve intermissions, someone to turn you over on your other side, a doctor to check on your voice-box and your nerves, and a few hundred energy drinks to keep you up. And that is all inclusive with your $12.50 movie ticket.
“Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
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