It

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Steven Weber

Stephen King’s classic #1 New York Times bestseller and the basis for the massively successful films It: Chapter One and It: Chapter Two as well as inspiration for HBO Max’s series It: Welcome to Derry—about an evil without a name: It.

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 the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers.

Readers of Stephen King know that Derry, Maine, is a place with a deep, dark hold on the author. It reappears in many of his books, including Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis, and 11/22/63. But it all starts with It.

“Stephen King’s most mature work” (St. Petersburg Times), “It will overwhelm you…to be read in a well-lit room only” (Los Angeles Times).

It or The Stand

When I first became an active reader, I asked a friend of mine, who loved Stephen King, which book she thought was his best. She thought for a long time and was pretty conflicted. She said, she was trying to decide between It and The Stand. Finally, she decided The Stand. I read The Stand because of that and yes, I listened all the way through. Back in those days I finished every book, I started, my wife still does. Boys and girls, if a book has not got you excited in the first three hours, don't waste your time. You are not breaking any laws, by not finishing a book your not enjoying. Anyways, I was okay with The Stand, but I did not love it, as many others have. After that, I did not read any King for a long time.

After reading Misery, Cell, The Shining and Carrie, and loving them, I decided it was time to conquer another long King book and, so I listened to It. So, So glad I did. This is close to a masterpiece. It is kind of an autobiography. Kids are the main characters. I guarantee, this will pull you back to your childhood. Even though there are monsters in this, it is the humans that are the real monsters, King mentions this himself. This was written in the Eighties and King tackles Gay Bashing. These days no big deal, but in the Eighties, it was a risk on his part. He also takes on child abuse, women abuse, and discrimination against Jews, fat people, stutterers, people who wear glasses, mamma's boys and blacks.

The book is scary and gory. I lost count of the decapitations.

Few writers can make me listen for 45 hours. Off the top of my head, Robin Hobb, James Michener and Stephen King. You know, I change my mind, this is a masterpiece, not close to.

I had absolutely no problems with the narrator or production.

King fans...

Steven weber NAILS this performance. always a fan of king (my first horror novel, hell maybe my first novel period that i read alone was pet cemetery) and is who made me fall in love with books; I'm definitely biased. I love his stories, watch and rewatch his movies, talk about him with coworkers and fantasize about a possible dark tower netflix series. My buddy and I used to joke about how much Wings has embraced king. I hesitated at watching weber's the shining because I felt it was so completely unnecessary. I'm halfway through this audio book and I had to tell someone how perfect of a job weber is doing .I'm going to watch his shining because of this performance. if you like king at all do yourself a favor and give this a listen. wow.

No editing problems.

I actually read the hard copy, then decided to listen to IT. There are no editing problems, that's just how Stephen King wrote the book, almost like cliff hangers. I loved the book, but Weber put a whole new spin on this for me. You can only imagine how the characters would sound in your head when you're reading IT for yourself, but he brought them to life for me. Great performance!

A Scary Trip Down Memory Lane

If you could sum up It in three words, what would they be?

I read "It" for the first time over 20 years ago. It's an experience to read it again at this point in my life. The first time , it was still the 80's. I was a teenager, a child, then. Surreal, to be this older lady now listening to a story I vaguely remembered, remembering it, as I read along. It was something like what the characters did. It added an element to the story that wasn't there the first time. It's something hard for me to describe...

I have been a Stephen King fan for most of my life. I have enjoyed his stories to varying degrees over the years but I will fight down anyone who dares to say he is not one of the greater authors to ever write a story. So, there's not much for me to add to the already glowing reviews.

A 40+ page read must be a daunting task. Steve Weber does an EXCELLENT job. I am rushing to find more books he narrates.

The audio does a curious thing throughout. It sounds like the narrator was cut off mid-word. It caught me unawares each time so it was jarring for a moment or two. I don't know if this is some kind of issue with the file.

Bewildered

The absolute best reading I have come across to date. I will definitely be seeking out more books read by Steven Weber in the future but for a while, I am done with Stephen King novels. Stephen King is phenomenal at describing people to the point that you feel you know them and the same goes for him describing the landscape, surroundings and situations so much that you feel you've been there and can sense it all. That being said, this book could've gone in such a different direction (keep in mind I've never seen the TV movie or theater movie and I didn't know anything about this book before reading) than what it did but I was left completely bewildered. I even felt myself rolling my eyes several times but I had already listened to over 40 hours of this book before that point, I wasn't about to stop there. I only heard one place where, clearly, part of a chapter was left out but the rest of it was Stephen Kings "signature" way of ending a chapter mid sentence only to begin it in the next or to end one mid thought but for he last part of the book it was EVERY chapter and it got old. The switching back and forth between childhood and present time became super hard to follow towards the end, where it was every chapter, that I found myself getting frustrated trying to focus on which year it was. All in all I enjoyed the book mainly because of the excellent reading but to me it ended up, to quote another reviewer; "a silly story".