This is one of those books I started reading and couldn’t wait to keep reading. I listened to it, and I think that adds a lot to Stephen King books. I’m listening to something else now and I keep getting sad that I’m not listening to this anymore!
So Jake finds out his friend Al Templeton has a doorway to the past in his pantry. Al is dying and asks Jake to finish what he started and stop the Kennedy assassination. He believes by stopping the assassination history will be changed for the better.
So Jake takes on the persona of George and goes back in time to do just that. Of course things are never simple or happy in a Stephen King book, so that doesn’t go so well!
What a great book, it’s not the usual King horror, it’s much more science fiction than that, but it has all of the relationship and life stuff that King does so well. Let’s all just admit that that is why his books are so good. Sure, the scary is fun, but it’s the relationships that make that scary seem so real.
There is so much leading up to George attempting to stop the assassination that you can almost forget for a moment that’s the goal of all this, which I think is what he was going for. I mean, if you went back in time and had five or so years before the time you were waiting for, you would start to forget why you were there and begin living a life. Like George though, you realize in small moments that these relationships aren’t meant to last, because there is a good chance things will F up and you will have to go back to your own time and if you come back to try again, everything will be reset.
So yeah, the stuff about the assassination was interesting and good on King for putting in the time to research it all, because I bet it took some real time. It comes off as totally believable. I found myself excepting everything he wrote about the Oswalds as fact, even though it’s obviously made up. That aside, it’s the rest of George’s life that keeps pulling you through the story. There is so much happiness and heart ache that you can’t help but want to keep reading. Of course, it’s also what makes the ending such a bitch too!
Grade A book, a must read!