Stephen King has surprised me. I’m familiar with his work. In fact, I have certain expectations of his books. Every one of those expectation are good ones. His books have caused me sleepless nights — not because he scared me; he did that too — because I couldn’t stop reading. I devoured words racing to the end of each page, chapter, and eventually the end of the book knowing he wouldn’t let me down and knowing I had to know what would happen.

I’ll admit to being more familiar with his earlier books and I haven’t sampled the Dark Tower series yet, but I will. I’ve heard good things.

When 11/22/63 came out I took note. It went on my list. Then I became suspicious. Everyone loved this book and I mean LOVED it. They couldn’t stop talking about it. I dropped my suspicion and picked up my curiosity. Hmm…could I break my rule about not reading shiny, new books? Did I want to break my cherished rule? It’s a rule for a reason and this book could disappoint me, yes it could. I can’t have that. In the end, I decided to break my rule. I bought 11/22/63 and gave it a day or two. Then I opened it. It’s not at all what I expected. For one thing, and I say this knowing I’m not actually giving anything away, it’s a time travel book. Yes, Stephen King wrote a time travel novel. And, it’s so good. So good I actually want to be reading it right now and not typing this but I need to tell you all how it good it is.

Eventually there will be a review here and though I’ve still got a few pages left in this chunkster of a book, I predict it will be a positive review. There is so much here to love. The characters and setting break your heart so much so that you start wondering when the bad thing will happen and then you realize it already has.