11/22/63

My third and probably final Stephen King book of the year, 11/22/63 was a concept that sounded a little too stupid to work properly- basically a modern day English teacher discovers a way to time travel, and uses his knowledge of the past to try to stop the Kennedy assassination. Try not to roll your eyes. Fortunately this is Stephen King, a schlock writer for sure but a guy whose books I can't seem to get enough of lately, so I ended up predictably being a fan of this one. Just like 2009's Under the Dome had a plot that seemed easy to poke holes in at first, only for these would-be plot holes to be completely addressed in the book, 11/22/63 took a story that could have been flubbed badly by other authors and made it a great read. It easn't perfect- while some might find the story a little bloated as there's a heavy focus on the protagonist adjusting to life in the 50's and 60's and not much action, I actually found these to be my favorite parts and instead never really got quite into the "we've got to save Kennedy!" angle. Something about the time-traveling fish out of water making money from gambling and trying to eke out a normal life while hiding the fact that he won't be born for another decade really interested me, and I (as well as the main character) kept thinking that he should just let history unfold as it should and enjoy his newfound happiness in the past. Although I suppose if there's a significant moment in history that could have easily been changed by a single person, the Kennedy assassination is a big one. Anyway even though I have It in my backlog, I'll probably hold off from King for now and try to make a dent in some of my harder to digest books. My video game backlog has been flying by, but I should probably start hacking away at my booklog a bit more.