11/22/63
Stephen King

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back?
In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty five year old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away - a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning's father came home and killed his mother, sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer.
Reading this essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life - like Harry's, like America's in 1963 - turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession - to prevent the Kennedy assassination.
So begins Jake's new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there's Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore.

First and foremost, I want you to understand the difference between someone's favorite book and a great book. Yes, the can overlap, but most of the time they don't. The books I consider my favorites are not always the books I consider to be fantastic. While this book probably is one of my favorites (though not at the top), it is most definitely the best book I have ever read in my entire life.

It is not a typical Stephen King book, so even if you don't like King, chances are you will like this. But it is a King book, so any die hard King fan needs to read this. A lot of research went into this book and what came out of it is a story unlike any you have ever read. The writing is top notch, the characters feel like real people, and even though this book is fiction, it truly feels as if it's a story that happened.

Stopping the assassination of JFK is not the only plot in the book. There's also Jake changing the course of events for other people and his falling in love and his time in Jodie.

What would happen if JFK had lived? Would the world be a better place? This question is answered, and it's not a pretty sight. Reality should not be tampered with, not matter how good the intentions are. Things that are meant to happen must be allowed to flow their natural course or the world itself could crumble.

This is not a quick read. It's not a short book. The hard bound copy I checked out of the library is 842 pages long. But it is well worth the read. I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone, but I do think that the older you are, the more you might appreciate it.

I've read much classic literature, and even comparing to those, this is by far the best book I have ever read. Check it out of the library, buy it, but either way, please read this masterpiece.

My rating: Six out of five snails. I will probably never give this rating again.