11/22/63 by Stephen King

11/22/63

Stephen King

849 pgs, 11/8/2011

Bought Physical Book

Goodreads Summary

If you had the chance to change the course of history, would you? Would the consequences be what you hoped?

Jake Epping 35 teaches high school English in Lisbon Falls, Maine, and cries reading the brain-damaged janitor's story of childhood Halloween massacre by their drunken father. On his deathbed, pal Al divulges a secret portal to 1958 in his diner back pantry, and enlists Jake to prevent the 11/22/1963 Dallas assassination of American President John F. Kennedy. Under the alias George Amberson, our hero joins the cigarette-hazed full-flavored world of Elvis rock n roll, Negro discrimination, and freeway gas guzzlers without seat belts. Will Jake lurk in impoverished immigrant slums beside troubled loner Lee Harvey Oswald, or share small-town friendliness with beautiful high school librarian Sadie Dunhill, the love of his life?

My Thoughts

Read this book!  Seriously, I know it’s long.  But it’s awesome and totally different for Stephen King yet still totally Stephen King. 

I looked at a blank piece of paper for awhile trying to write a summary without giving away too much and I’m stumped.  So instead here’s a mini list of reasons you should read it.

·         Time travel – I love the concept of this book, but what’s really amazing is that King pulls it off. 

·         The writing – No surprise but it’s excellent.  King may tend to be a little more detailed than I need at times, but he’s at his best here.

·         Love Story – At its heart 11/22/63 is a love story.  A beautifully developed and at times heartbreaking love story.

·         Characters – Jake, Sadie, Ellie, Deke, Al – all of the characters are fleshed out and have dimension. 

·         Educational – I am not a history buff.  I learn 90% of my history through historical fiction and this is perfect.  Well researched and the history was woven into the story so seamlessly that I never noticed it.

My Rating

Enjoyability (4 out of 5 stars)

Characters (4.5 out of 5 stars)

Writing (5 out of 5 stars)

This book will stay with me forever.

Who else out there has read it?  What did you think of the ending?

Top 10 Tuesday - Most Memorable Secondary Characters

Every Tuesday the ladies over at The Broke and theBookish host a book related Top 10 theme. 

This week’s theme is Memorable Secondary Characters.  YAY!  I love fun secondary characters.   I actually mentioned a few of my faves in this post.

Grandma Mazur from the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich

“That shooting gave me an appetite," she said. "Somebody pass
me the potatoes."

“The dog ran into the kitchen, stuck his nose in Grandma's crotch, and snuffled.
Dang," Grandma said. "Guess my new perfume really works. I'm gonna have to try it out at the seniors meeting.”

Windsor Horne Lockwood III (Win) from the Myron Bolitar Series by Harlan Coben

“If you clone yourself and then have sex with yourself, is it considered incest or masturbation?”

“So basically your plan is to flail about helplessly.”

Hoppie/Doc/Morey from “The Power of One” by Bryce Courtenay

“The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, often well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The mind is the athlete, the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better.”

“Always listen to yourself... It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention.”

“Your brain, Peekay, has two functions; it is a place for original thought, but also it is a reference library. Use it to tell you where to look, and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been”

Miranda Priestly from “The Devil wears Prada” by Lauren Weisburger

“Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.”

Fred and George from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

Lettie West/Davenport from some later books in John Sandfords Prey Series

Shrake (cop) and Letty, Lucas and Weather’s 15 year old daughter are playing gin rummy

“Who’s winning”

“Don’t bother us,” Letty said, “If he goes out, I’ve got to take off my bra.”

“When I’d kill a rat, I’d always aim at the little white spot in their eye.  ‘Course, I was using a twenty-two, from two inches.  Still like that gun.” 

“But he didn’t hit me in the head.  He hit me in the arm, and I hate this cast.” 

Stuart Whitworth from “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett

Joanna Mason and Finnick Odair from “Mockingjay” by Suzanne Collins

Doris from “Attachments” by Rainbow Rowell

Mammy from “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell

 

When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin

When Crickets Cry
Charles Martin
336 pgs, 2006 Westbow Press
Purchased Book

Goodreads Summary

"A man with a painful past. A child with a doubtful future. And a shared journey toward healing for both their hearts."

It begins on the shaded town square in a sleepy Southern town. A spirited seven-year-old has a brisk business at her lemonade stand. But the little girl's pretty yellow dress can't quite hide the ugly scar on her chest.

Her latest customer, a bearded stranger, drains his cup and heads to his car, his mind on a boat he's restoring at a nearby lake. The stranger understands more about the scar than he wants to admit. And the beat-up bread truck careening around the corner with its radio blaring is about to change the trajectory of both their lives.

Before it's over, they'll both know there are painful reasons why crickets cry . . . and that miracles lurk around unexpected corners.

My Summary

When Crickets Cry revolves around a man named Reese who is mourning the loss of his wife and has essentially banished himself from the life he lived before her death.  One day in town he is drawn to a young girl at a lemonade stand with unexpected energy and a scar he recognizes all too well.

Told in alternating chapters between the current time and Reese’s past beginning with when he met his wife the author tries to establish some mystery as to what happened to Reese’s wife and who he was before her death.  The first third of the book accomplished that goal, but resulted in chapters that felt choppy.  Just as I invested in his story in the past or present the scene would shift.

I abhor giving away plot detail and since Charles Martin went to such trouble to create mystery early in the novel I’d be even more hesitant, BUT about halfway through he gave away the entire ending.  To the point I could tell you details of how it would play out – not just whether it would have a happy ending.

SPOILERS AHEAD – I could not figure out how to give my thought without giving away some plot points.  Skip to Overall Thoughts to avoid.

Reese fell in love with his wife when they were children and she had a heart condition already.  He started studying the heart at a very young age – he’s very smart (pretty much unbelievably).  Eventually he went to medical school where he excelled and became a heart surgeon.  He’s incredibly successful, especially with children.  His wife is on the list for a new heart and they had decided on a surgeon to perform the operation.  A heart becomes available, but it’s an EXACT match for his wife and another one of his patients.  His wife insists it should go to the other patient. 

Side note:  This could never happen.  There are no ties in UNOS – they have eight criteria in order

·         Age

·         Ability of the patient to recover

·         ABO

·         Distance

·         Height and weight

·         Life support status

·         Listing status

·         Time on the waiting list (down to the SECOND!)

Anyway, Reese performs that transplant on his patient and returns home and goes to sleep.  He wakes up to discover his wife’s heart is failing, calls 911 and almost performs a miraculous open heart surgery in their kitchen to maintain her long enough to get to a hospital but in the end fails.

Fast forward a few years and Reese is living in semi-seclusion.  He goes into the nearest town for a few things and is drawn to the little girl selling lemonade.  Annie has a scar on her chest that he can tell means she’s had several heart surgeries.  She’s hit by a truck and he saves her life while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.  From there the story unfolds in a pleasantly predictable way.  Annie befriends Reese not knowing he’s a heart surgeon.  As he gets more and more involved in her life, Reese begins to consider coming out of exile to perform Annie’s heart transplant.

Overall Thoughts

This was probably never going to be a favorite of mine.  To me it was a cross between Nicholas Sparks and Jodi Picoult – I’ve read 2 of each of theirs and have no interest in more.    I found When Crickets Cry to be overwritten in several sections, especially the Prologue. 
 

"I pushed against the spring hinge, cracked open the screen door, and scattered two hummingbirds fighting over my feeder.  The sound of the wings faded into the dogwood branches above, and it was there that the morning met me with streaks of sunkist crackling across the skyline.  Seconds before, God had painted the sky a mixture of black and deep blue, then smeared it with rolling wisps of cotton and sprayed it with specks of glitter, some larger than others.  I turned my head sideways, sort of corkscrewing my eyes, and decided that heaven looked like a giant granite countertop turned upside down and framing the sky."

If this hadn’t been a book club choice I wouldn’t have made it past the first paragraph.  I laughed when I read “sunkist” cause it’s not a word – it’s a brand.  He does it a couple more times in the novel.   And the third and fourth sentences had me rolling my eyes.

My Rating

Enjoyability (3 out of 5 stars)

Relationships (3 out of 5 stars) – The main character may have had two dimensions – everyone else was pretty one dimensional.

Writing (1.5 out of 5 stars)

This book will stay with me…longer than you would guess from my review.  I read it about a month ago and had no problem writing this review.

Other Reviews of When Crickets Cry

Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Stray Thoughts

Reading for Sanity