It

By Stephen King

“A great book…a landmark in American literature.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Welcome to Derry, Maine…

It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real….

They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Aug 7, 1987
• ISBN: 9781101138113

Stephen King

Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947. In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co., accepted the novel Carrie for publication, providing him the means to leave teaching and write full-time. He has since published over 40 books and has become one of the world's most successful writers. Stephen lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. They are regular contributors to a number of charities including many libraries and have been honored locally for their philanthropic activities.

Reviews for It

[belles007-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is the only book of his that I didn't really like.

[moniquesnyman-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A tome, but a brilliant read!

[justagirlwithabook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a crazy ride. It took me way too many months to read this book. I picked it up in October with all the best intentions to read it during that month (the perfect month for horror), and here we are in January (almost February) and I finally finished It. This one was a good one. Classic Stephen King writing, and I think my favorite parts were the connects he slipped in to other books (11/22/63 made a lot of connections to It that I was finally able to recognize now that I've read It). While it wasn't as horrifying as you'd expect for a 'horror novel,' it was still full of all sorts of eerie situations and creatures. And if I'm honest, I can't step into my pitch black garage without having a basement moment. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[ron18-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There are some good things in It. They outweigh the bad. While it isn't a very good book, I'll grant that it is worth reading (until someone eventually does it better - Summer of Night by Dan Simmons took a stab but failed to do significantly better).

The things about it that are good will hopefully be distilled into the upcoming movie release. I'd read this as a kid (12ish), and just reread in my early 40's. I thought it would be particularly cool, b/c that's the age King was when he wrote it - and he also had kids around the ages of my own. Instead it reinforced my memory of it having been overlong and ultimately poorly put together.

The very last thing he does in the book is point out that it took him over 4 years to write. It shows, in that the themes, protagonists, antagonists, and plot are all seriously inconsistent when you get right down to it. Huge chunks just flushed down the toilet at times. One of the main characters dies and not a single character remembers that the guy was married.

Your antagonist is a malevolent creature that can appear as whatever a particular child fears, but has a habit of appearing as a clown. Except when It doesn't - like when It uses intermediaries. Or when it's an extradimensional light being. Or a big spider. The mechanics are messy. The time jumping becomes a substitute for creativity and does less to compare/contrast aging and maturity, and more to serve as a way to double the length of the book while asking you to eat the same meals twice with a little bit of changes to their seasoning.

King was especially weird about women and sex at this time in his writing career. He's very rarely depicted sex, sexuality, or non-heterosexual non-male characters particularly well (he's done this better in the last decade or two) - - but when he stooped to having his preteen cast of 7 all take turns having sex with the only girl in their circle of friends, in order to help them find their way out of the sewer... you have one of the biggest facepalms of a very long and wordy writing career.

The stereotyping cliches are played for laughs... then the laughs start to sound forced and awkward. They're supposed to show you that humanity is the real monster (when aging isn't the real monster)... but it happens in a cartoonish and heavy-handed way that feels embarrassing to me today.

There are hundreds of pages that add nothing to the story. Nothing. Anyone who can read word for word when he's knocking down the town (for no discernible reason) in a fireworks display intended (it seems) to distract from the disappointing non-ending (doubled-down with a shmultzy little ditty involving Bill's non-character of a wife whose involvement is never not awkward).

He does most of this story better later on in the book Insomnia (underrated to It's overrated). Go there for the story of aging, memory, friendship, invisible worlds, and personal quasi-supernatural empowerment against a dark quasi-supernatural influence.

Then, at the end of the day, you have the 1/3rd of the book that was genuinely fun to be in - and even spooky at times. Why he abandoned Robert Gray, (initially established as an alien that crash landed in prehistoric times) for the likes of malevolent lights from beyond space and time (complete with Doctor Strange scenes of astral stretching), is the hard question I think readers are left with. Maybe after the first 3 years he thought he had to try something different. It's a shame. All the tropes (dirty clown, silver eyes, orange pom-poms, balloons, child endangerment) are *completely* thrown out the window for the last 20% or so of the book. That this doesn't leave more people asking "WTF?" either illustrates that they didn't really read the book, or that after they've invested in 700 pages or so, the next couple hundred aren't going to be scrutinized - they're going to be plowed through for the relief of escaping out the other side.

As negative as a lot of this has got to sound - I'm way more critical of things I like, and I've always liked Stephen King. His heavy borrowing (from better stories) and usual failure to close the deal are just things you have to accept if you're going to bathe in his frequently wonderful characterization and atmosphere building. Every once in a while, especially in his longer works (I feel this way in spades about The Stand, but I've only read the unabridged version - also in Wizard and Glass), that atmosphere stops working too.

[zoes_human · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When reading this in my teens and early twenties, I remember being nervous walking past sewer pump houses and grates, speeding my pace as I did so. I recall a sensation verging on panic when I would close my eyes to rinse my hair in the shower. At least once I made the choice to wait for a housemate to get home rather than taking an after-dark shower in an empty apartment. It was the most terrifying thing I had read. It being terrifying enough to leave me unnerved for months after I'd finish it.Yet I kept picking it up again. At 41, the human monsters within these pages are far scarier than It is. What remains true, however, is the depth and humanity of his characters. I know these kids. Mike, Stan, Eddie, Bev, Ben, Bill and Richie have had a place in my heart for over a quarter of a century now, and there will always be space for them there. In this book above all others, he surpasses himself in the reality of the people who dwell within its pages. This is what kept me coming back when reading it meant experiencing months of low-grade fear. This is what will keep me rereading its 1100 odd pages in the future - the sensation of revisiting old friends.

[baileysandbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Confirmed my fear of clowns.

[adam.currey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was somewhat disappointed with this book. I've read a few Stephen King books before, so I knew what to expect, more or less, but this one left me feeling cold. Don't get me wrong, it's ok, but it's not scary, it's not suspenseful, and it drags on forever. This is a 500-page novel, told in 1,100 pages. Despite spending 1,100 pages thoroughly covering all sorts of side-plots, King inexplicably skims over more-important things, such as what happened to Audra and Tom.There are some interesting aspects - the character development is good, as is the use of the character's memories (or lack thereof) as an atmosphere-developing device. I was pleasantly surprised that King didn't leave us hanging when it comes to learning who or what It is, too. Not thoroughly, but enough to be satisfying.

[claraoscura_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a very bad book. I was so disappointed. I knew Stephen King was not high literature, but come one ... this too long, not scary, weird plot twists (why the sex?), the end doesn't make sense.Use the time to read something better! :)

[criticalnes · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'm so disappointed by this book, it took me over a year to read this because it's absurdly long, clocking around 1000 pages, which 700 pages too long if you ask me.

The horror and terror I had was 0, absurd at times, it was also repetitive and the flashback to their youth was terribly long and exhausting. A 3oo pages or so flashback is just NO.

There was also weird stuff like the villain kids masturbating each other/giving a blowjob/who knows what and that just made me close my eyes in dismain. Same for when the boys all had sex with the 1 girl in the group one after the other, as some kind of answer/fighting against IT. It's just... *Sighs* I have no words to describe my feelings accurately, but they're not positive.

I'd tell both mystery, horror fans and people that like good plots to just skip this out cause it's not worth the dredge from start to finish. Stephen King has not impressed me with his writing save for a few spots, but I didn't need stellar writing, succinct and punchy and atmospheric is what a horror, thrilled or mystery should have. This one had none of those.

Though I guess if one is a kid they'd maybe be scared by it, BUT THIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE so I dunno who this book is actually targeting. As an adult it does not scare me, and trust me I hate spiders and have made it my calling in life to kill all of the ones that appear in front of me. Clowns do not scare me, same for dragons, or any other such things.

I'm not entirely sure Stephen King is the type of writer I like, maybe I should try his shorter works because his long ones are just dull.

But hey if you like boring and dragging, this is the story for you! :D

[antao-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

(Original Review, 2010-12-16)For the most part I am not too concerned with genre writing as with Literature, unless said writing IS Literature (e.g., P.K. Dick or Hammett). I admit I did read Brown's Da Vinci Code, with no pleasure at all, because I am a bit of a fan of deep dark secrets encoded in the arts, although I tend now to think of it like Foucault's Pendulum, SPOILER HERE; that the secret is that there is no secret. Still I wonder if I dislike what seems to me as overwritten and precious prose so much because it just doesn't sing in my tin ear. If you feel like going to the trouble, what are some examples of prose that sings to you, from the domain of literature, and some of the stuff you find unreadable that the rest of the world loves?As to the last question, I have to be general, since I have a lousy memory and I am far away from my bookcases. As I have said elsewhere, Rushdie doesn't sing to me. Neither does Tolstoy. I find all the Beat writers insufferable and I don't get the reverence for Marquez at all. What I love... So many more things. Chekhov is one of my all-time heroes. Shakespeare, of course. Robertson Davies, Jonathon Carroll, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin. All of these writers sing. You understand that this is just a tiny fistful of them.On the whole I don't care much about the distinction between genre and literature, apart from the fact that we live in a reading world where people can get obsessed about these things. My own stance: there are only stories. Good ones and bad ones, well or badly told. Genre (as in: all the cupboards you can devise) is just a distraction.What is the difference between Homer and Game of Thrones? I don't mean this as a glib question. Seriously, was the campfire Homer trying to do anything different from what the writer (or broadcaster) of GoT is doing: to capture and hold an audience by telling a tale of heroes and Gods and monsters? Isn't much of what we talk about when we talk about literature and genre simply the respectability of time passed?I once seriously pissed off a professor when I was attending Universidade de Letras in Lisbon (I didn't like him and the feeling was mutual) by handing in a paper comparing Shakespeare and Stephen King, arguing they were really doing the same type of thing. Both writing for money and trying to reach the widest of audiences, both relaying heavily on grandiose set pieces, the supernatural and both heavily influenced by the idea behind the old Greek tragedy: that, contrary to what most people think, it is not hubris that really determines our fate but some more basic flaw.So, to me, yes, there is only story - and the music of prose. Updike gives great story. Neil Gaiman has a better voice. All of that, of course, is personal. Up to a point.To be fair, Stephen King is a pretty divisive writer. When he's good, he's good. When he's bad he gets published anyway and that does a lot of harm to his reputation with some people, just like Martin. He recycles a lot, he writes some very two-dimensional characters and he resorts to generic horror movie tropes all too frequently, but with a harsher, less greedy publisher he could be great. Half the books, half the waffle, half the good starts with bad endings and bad starts with good endings. A more consistent body of work would have prevented a lot of the criticisms of his work, and that's the publisher's job, not his. But they all probably made a lot more money this way. “IT” is a good case in point. It could have been much better than it is. “IT” and “The Stand” are probably the only two works from King I actually considered great writing. The rest of his stuff? Good, at best, to just downright mediocre most of the time. It's hit and miss with King; mostly miss. “IT”, though, is undoubtedly one of my favourite. Heck, the book would have been great even if the supernatural aspect of the story was excluded. Kind of a like a Great American Novel, but not quite.

[bingereader87 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this book in a month, by listening to it as an audiobook. It was dark, violent, and really well written. However, there was some stuff I took issue with but more as a personal preference than anything else (which is why I gave it 5 instead of 4).

This had some definite craziness to it and I can't wait to see what they do with the upcoming IT: Chapter Two.

[isatyajeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is pretty much Stephen King’s Bible, and is almost as long as the actual Bible, coming in at 1,138 pages! I read this in my early teenage days, and I remember it reading in a week or so. Binge reading! It's really good.

[loralye_42-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read a lot of books. I worked at a bookstore for years and we were allowed to "check out" books, and I took full advantage of this perk. I have hundreds of books on my kindle, my book shelves and my audible library. One of the few that I have read more than once is "It" by Stephen King.
It is an epic tale of childhood, friendship, loyalties, love and terror. Stephen King is one of those authors who creates characters that you care about, whether you love them or hate them, you care what happens to them. In "It", you follow a group of kids through a summer of terror in their hometown of Derry, Maine, and witness their grief, love, fear and backbone, all the while dealing with an ancient evil. The friends come back together as adults when the terror starts again, as they knew it would. As adults, they have all gone their own way, and reunite to repeat the process in their adult bodies with their adult minds and beliefs.
This is a tale that shouldn't be missed by anyone. It is so much more than a horror story, and should really have a category of it's own!

[margaretfield · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

group of children in Maine take on a supernatural clown killer; disturbing parts about the one girl in the group; well written in the use of multiple meanings

[caseybp · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hands down one o the best books I have ever read! Though it took me nearly three months to read it, the time I spent with it has been thrilling. I initially was going to read this along with my niece, however I am glad she decided not to venture into it. Much of what I loved about it, besides being terrified, was feeling the wonderment of fear that I felt as a child growing up in the country. Though I grew up in the 80's not the 50's, the magic I felt at that age was rekindled as I read this book. Now that I have finished it, it will be a bit of a mourning period as I leave the characters behind.

[kristinah-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first scary book I ever read and it terrified me. I am still afraid of clowns. I would recommend it to others.

[vinjii-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The way I got to meet this book will always be special to me. I was maybe about eight years old. Yes, you read that right. I remember reading a fairy-tale about a man who wanted to learn fear by the Grimm brothers. And, as children do, I decided, I too wanted to learn fear. I asked my father to bring me a scary book. He brought me scary tales for children. They were not scary one bit. I told him those were for babies (pretty sure I used those words), I wanted to find out what it REALLY means to be scared.The next day IT was waiting on the dinner table.That night I slept with the light on.I love Stephen King's writing. I think he paints characters in a beautiful way and he's really great at giving them depth with just a few paragraphs. Most of his stories had a huge impact on me and IT will always be special to me.

[msaucier818 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When my students ask me why I enjoy reading so much, I tell them because you can ride a rollercoaster of emotions when you sit down with a good book. I have to say that It was one of the few books to truly scare me when I am reading. It is the type of read that is entertaining, but keeps you up when you close it, making you think about what you read and forcing you to tell yourself that everything is going to be good. This is probably the longest book I have ever read, but I think it was absolutely worth it. I recommend it to any Stephen King fan obviously, or any fan of a good horror book. The television miniseries doesn't do this book justice, so please don't base your decision on that. One of my all time favorites.

[trayceetee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read this twice before, always thought it was pretty good... maybe a 3 1/2 Or 4 star rating. I just finished listening to Steven Weber's reading of it. Oh my GOSH, was it amazing! There are so many things I hadn't noticed before, so many things I'd forgotten. This is an EPIC story, worthy of every single moment I've spent on it! Yes, it's one of King's longer stories.... I wouldn't change a thing!!!

If you're unfamiliar with the story, here's a quick summary: there's a really bad, scary monster/being/presence in the town of Derry, Maine. Sometimes It appears as a wolfman, or a mummy, or a sore-covered bum; but mostly, It appears as a clown. It comes back to "feed" every 27-30 years, focusing mostly on the small children of the area. In 1955, The Loser's Club actually manages to cause some damage to It, and they think maybe kill It. However, in case they didn't completely wipe It out, they make a promise through blood that they'll come back to finish the job if they need to. In 1985, that's just what they're called to do. But can they kill It, now that they've all grown up?

[mainrun · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It had a style I do not like. The time line was not start to finish. It kept going from 1958 to 1985 back to 1958 and repeat. Every now and then other 27 year intervals were thrown in. Having the 39 year old 1985 characters not remember what happened when they were 12 years old in 1958 was a good way to work it though. There were many spoilers, and I kept saying "I knew that was going to happen." This might be a book that is better the second time through. I'd like to find a version that starts in the beginning, which would be pre-history when the creature arrives, and is then told to the 1985 conclusion without that bleeping jumping around!

[soniaandree_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Rereading this novel, I am still reminded about Stephen King's skills when it comes to the narrative of childhood - he has a knack for making you think about your own, as if his tale(s) could conjure up similar life experience in our own, or an echo of it. This is, of course, not including the horror elements, but distancing between the two is necessary if you think about it. Originally, I had read it in French as a teenager. Horror elements had then a bigger impact on me than the underlying elements of childhood but somehow, they helped me cope with my recurrent nightmares. Now, I probably see the background narrative more with the eyes of maturity and experience, and while I really think King's skills lie more in short stories and novellas, this is one of the few novels which conveys a sense of having been worked on, in terms of characterisation but also in its format and conclusion. It's one of King's novels I'd recommend reading a few times, a few years apart, maybe, because it's a different reading each time.

[tiffy_reads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Whoa. What a story. This was a perfect chunkster book. Stephen King definitely knows how to make you afraid of clowns and tell a great horror story.

[kmajort · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Scared the crap outta me - I now *highly* dislike clowns.......

[zoewashburne · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This will forever be my favorite book... most likely.

[carolesrandomlife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this one. I really have not read a lot of King's work but this book has been one that I have wanted to pick up for a long time. I decided to go with the audiobook since I had heard great things about the narration and I think I made a really good choice. This was a really entertaining story that kept me listening for hours at a time.This book is told in alternating timelines. We follow a group of characters in the childhood and again as adults. The timelines worked really well with each other to tell the story of the events occurring in the town of Derry and there are some very strange events happening in that little town in Maine. I found that I liked both timelines equally and was really invested in finding out how things would work out in each. I really feel like I got to know all of the characters very well. There is no shortage of character development in this book. If anything, I would say that we are given too much information regarding the backgrounds of some of the characters. I mean this is a really long book and sometimes I felt like I spent hours listening to only learn one character's backstory. On one hand I really liked all the details but on the other hand the book felt too long. I liked that the main characters were all flawed individuals that had things to overcome as kids and new things to overcome as adults. I think that this book did a lot of things really well in addition to the characters and use of timelines. I think that it did a great job of painting a truly creepy and menacing portrait of the evil in Derry. I liked the mystery behind Pennywise and his appearances. There were some truly frightening scenes in the book which I really appreciated as well. There were a few scenes that felt so realistic that I found myself cringing as I listened to the book.There were a few things that I didn't care for in the book. The end of the book felt really weird to me. The ending was surprisingly odd and just didn't seem to completely fit. I was also rather bothered by the sex scenes involving kids. It was just all kinds of wrong and the book would have been a lot stronger without it in my opinion. I did feel that the book was too long. I enjoyed the story but by the time I got closer to the end, I was more than ready to be done with it. Steven Weber did an absolutely fantastic job narrating this book. There was a very large cast of characters that he handled very well. I thought that he did an exceptional job with Bill's stutter and keeping all of the voices consistent. He added just enough of a creepy factor to the scenes that needed it. He really did such a wonderful job in bringing this story to life and I often listened to his voice for hours at a time. I would definitely listen to his narration again if given the opportunity.I would recommend this book to others. It wasn't perfect but it was really good and I am glad that I finally took the time to listen to it. I do recommend the audiobook for anyone considering reading this book because I really do feel that the narration adds a wonderful element to the story. I do hope to read more from Stephen King in the near future.

[pennma05-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Was hoping to like this one a little more. It just felt so long and drawn out. It was a little hard to keep track of the constant back and forth with flashbacks, too. I think this book could have been cut way down from what it is.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are a bazillion reviews of this out there so I'm not going to get into what the book is about but rather my experience of re-reading the book. It took me the whole month of December to read as it's quite a tome. king's second longest book after "The Stand" I believe. I was 18 the first time I read this book and I've had fond memories of loving it. Since it's been so long since I red it, I kind of felt like I was just a step behind the plot, remembering things as they happened. I'vve been reading King in chronological order and this came at an aappropriate time for me as now I can watch the recent movie. This is King's first book that takes place in Derry, though it has been mentioned before. There are also a ton a references to his previous books up to this such as the mention of the crazy cop killer (Dead Zone) and guessing that someone's last name was Underwood (The Stand). In general this story is very similar to "The Body" (Stand By Me) only with monsters. I like this group of children better. It's more diverse; there is a Catholic, a Jew, a black kid and a girl included amongst the seven and I think they also are more of a comarison to the group of kids from "Stranger Things". I was surprised that the lown is not as major a part of the book as it is commonly thought to be by pop culture. I didn't find the story scary t all but there are a couple of classic King gross out scenes. Most of all though the book is a tremendous story of characters with a huge cast that King juggles to perfection, one of the things I like best about King. A great book, not his best, but up there and a must read for fans. This could also be a good introduction for first time readers if they don't mind the length, for a shorter intro to King I recommend "Pet Semetary".

[lportmann_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of King's best books.

[amatheya81 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've spent most of my life afraid of this story after watching the TV series as a child. I finally decided to read it and only made it half way through before I decided that it is far to scary for me. What I did read was brilliant and scary, the imagry was fantastic and far better than anything the TV series came up with. I would definately recomend this book, but only to people who are far less wimpy than me!!

[jscape2000 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As with all Stephen King's work, It is at times unpredictable and unbelievable, which is both the novel's blessing and curse. Part of what makes King a master of his genre is his willingness to press against its limits; in It he plays with the sense of destiny that often infuses horror stories, giving the task of destroying an impossible evil to children. He then follows these children through their lives, as the horror echoes forward, undermining all their future (apparent) successes.