IT (James Mercer)

Title: IT
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 1138

I found this book on the book shelf in my living room. I like most of King’s books so I thought I would give this one a shot.

The town of Derry, Maine is just your average small town deep in the heart of Main. It is quite and boring, until an ancient evil is released in town. A shape shifting monster known only as IT becomes responsible for a mass number of deaths and murders. Mainly taking the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, IT kills six-year George Denbrough, homosexual Adrian Mellon, and then a string of children. IT also causes a group of six old friends to lose their childhood memories. However the one who was able to keep his memories was possessed by IT and slit his wrists in the bath and wrote “IT” on the shower wall in his own blood. As the friends return to Derry, IT appears to all of them. IT also drives people around them insane and controls them to try to get to the 5 friends. These 5 called themselves the “the losers”. The rest of the book is the loser’s individual battles with IT and eventually the final showdown with IT in the form of a giant spider. After the losers successfully kill IT a giant storm collapses downtown Derry. Every member of the losers has a vision of the past where the group had cut their palms and making a pact to return to Derry if IT returned.

I think King was writing this book to young adults who don’t mind getting scared senseless. King is the king of horror and terrifying you is his only goal in every novel.

King’s writing style is exactly what I stated above. Terrifying. That’s really the only way to describe it.

Pg 14- “what he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams”. This passage is the death of George. As George reaches to grab a balloon offered by pennywise, IT grabs George’s arm and rips it out of his socket.
Pg 147- “they just disappeared. All of them. All 340 of them. Without a trace.” This passage demonstrates the true power of IT
A ton of pages- “HI YO SILVER AWAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY” This quote appears over and over again through the book. I still haven’t figured out the deep significance of it. All I know is that Silver was the name of George’s brother bill’s bike.

I loved this book. It was pleasingly terrifying and also a good story. However I couldn’t connect with it because, well it is a complete fiction story. I mean I’ve never encountered a shape shifting demon mass murderer before. So yea, kinda difficult to connect to. However this doesn’t take away from the story at all. A truly breath taking tale of friendship, bravery and murder.