Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm)'s Reviews > It

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It is 1958 in the small town of Derry, Maine and several children have been found murdered. Bill Denbrough and his six best friends believe the murders are linked to something that lurks beneath their home town – something that crawled from their nightmares and has taken form in the shadowed recesses of the sewers. Driven by forces unseen, Bill and his friends sense they have what it takes to stop the monster. They vow – with a piece of broken glass sliced across their palms – to come back to Derry if evil ever returns. Twenty-seven years later, the murders have started again. It’s time for Bill and his friends to honor their vow . . .

Here in Derry children disappear unexplained and unfound at the rate of forty to sixty a year. Most are teenagers. They are assumed to be runaways. I suppose some of them even are.

At over eleven hundred pages in length, It is a prolific book that provides significant backstory for each character and gives an abundant history of Derry, Maine. Because King provides so many specifics – almost to the point of excess – the book reads like a vast compilation of research collected on true events.

Though the story is sometimes bogged down by the excessive specifics, quite often a slogging passage (that recounts a historical event) eventually arrives at such a disturbing conclusion that forging through a long, slow chapter becomes, with startling suddenness, a worthwhile read.

What makes this book notorious, however, is the dreadful monster at the heart of the story: Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise – or It – is not as prevalent in the book as one might presume, given its classification as a horror novel, but any time It makes an appearance, the narrative drops readers into a dark scene where terrifying events unfold.

Smells of dirt and wet and long-gone vegetables would merge into one unmistakable ineluctable smell, the smell of the monster, the apotheosis of all monsters. It was the smell of something for which he had no name: the smell of It, crouched and lurking and ready to spring. A creature which would eat anything but which was especially hungry for boymeat.

Though it contains elements of horror, It is a literary coming of age story that just happens to take place in a small town were horrific events transpire. Instead of dividing the book into two parts, with the events of 1958 recounted first and the events of 1985 recounted second, King opts to tell both stories simultaneously with the use of clever plot pacing and an unorthodox chapter structure. This sometimes results in the narrative feeling redundant, but the story is so skillfully woven together that one cannot help but appreciate King’s masterful stylistic approach to conveying two stories at once.

With characters that feel like old friends and enough scares to keep readers up at night, It strikes a satisfying balance between literary writing and telling grim stories of violence and gore.