Adam Bauks

HKMS

Period 6

ILA

Jockers

Letter Essay #6 (It By Stephen King)

 

For sometime now I have been reading the 1156 page horror novel IT. At this moment I have read 756 pages and I am exactly 400 pages away from finishing this novel. This novel was published  in the year 1986 and was written by the American author Stephen King. The novel is about seven people who face off against a mysterious creature who lives within their town of Derry Maine. The seven main characters are named William “Stuttering Bill” Denbrough, Ben “Haystack” Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon, Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Stanley Uris. In this book they fight for their lives and the lives of others to kill IT or IT’s other names Pennywise the Dancing Clown and Mr. Bob Gray. i read this book for a few reasons. One, because this is one of Stephen King’s more well known and popular books, two because after watching the 2017 version of IT I was very excited to read this monster of a novel, three I am trying to read as many Stephen King novels as I can this year.

The book mainly takes place in two different years, 1958 and 1985. It will be very hard to summaries 756 pages of this book without it being thirty pages of eleven year olds cursing and being mutilated, so I will fill you in on the important parts of the story without spoiling the book. The book starts of in the year 1957 and Bill Denbrough’s little brother George goes out in a very bad thunderstorm with his paper boat the S.S. Georgie. The boat gets away from George and and falls in the storm drain. George sees eyes in the drain and a clown appears before his eyes. The clown introduces himself as Mr. Bob Gray. George and the clown have a conversation for awhile and then the clown asks George if he wants a balloon. George says yes and then asks “Do they float?”. The clown replies with “Oh yes indeed they do. They Float!” George goes to reach for the balloon and the clown grabs George’s arm and takes a big bite and rips George’s arm off clean. Unlike the movie where the bodies are never found in the book all the dead children are found mutilated and torn apart. The book then jumps to the year 1985 and a gay couple are being attacked by two men because of their sexuality. One man Adrian Mellon is throw off a bridge and down in front of a large sewer drain. There he sees Pennywise the Dancing Clown. This event started the next killing spree in the town of Derry. When Mike Hanlon hears  about this murder he knows exactly how did it. He then makes six phone calls, one for each of his old friends. He tells them that IT is back and killing once more. Everyone arrives back in Derry except for Stan Uris. They all find out that Stan had killed himself once he found out about IT being back. He was so scared from his childhood that he decided that he couldn’t relive what had hadn’t to him. The book then goes back to 1958 and each characters first encounter with Pennywise. Bill and Richie go through a photo album filled with pictures of George and find a picture of the two of them walking down the street and all of a sudden the book turns into Pennywise’s mouth and it bites down on Bills hand. Mike is attacked by a giant crow and chased down and sees pennywise off in the distance. Beverly hears voices down the drain and a big balloon comes out of the sink and pops spraying blood all over the bathroom and her. When she calls her dad to takes a look and sees no blood at all. Richie sees Pennywise as the Wolfman. Eddie sees pennywise as a Leper and chases Eddie down. Stan sees all the dead children that Pennywise had killed. Finally Ben sees Pennywise as his father. The kids later find out that Pennywise appears every twenty-seven years to eat then he goes into hibernation till he awakens hungry. More children are found dead by the hands of Pennywise and the kids decide to make a club called the “Losers Club”. The book then jumps back to 1985 and the Losers each come in contact again with Pennywise. Ben sees him at the library and him and Pennywise have a conversation about their last encounter. Bill sees Pennywise when he visits George’s grave. Eddie again sees Pennywise as a leper. Beverly sees her father and tells you more about her relationship with her father. Richie is walking down the street and encounter pennywise. The book once again goes back to 1958 and Bens finds out a way to help the Losers defeat Pennywise. He tells them about the Ritual of Chüd. What they do is make a smoke hole using green wood so they can see visions to help them with the battle with Pennywise.

The genre of this book so far is definitely horror. There is a lot of disturbing topics in this book and they are not for the faint of heart. I think it is a great book that most people should read if they really want to experience something different from reading. To score this book on a scale of one to ten I would give it a nine so far. The book is amazingly written and the transitions from each year is so smooth and creative. There are themes in this book that children should not read, but overall this is a terrific book, so far.

Sincerely, Adam Bauks