Book #2

Book #2 is a recent read and I cannot honestly say it was one of the best books I have ever read. However, the first 200 pages came as close to representing my own childhood as I have ever found in print. The lazy summer mornings of bike riding, hanging out with friends and searching out the answers when weird things happened (invented or not). Like the characters in this thriller, I grew up with a group of kids who have remained lifelong friends. Throughout reading this book I continually wondered about how I would have reacted to the circumstances and placed myself into the vivid characterizations. The straight forward plot of this book contains a town which is beset upon by an ancient evil and group of kids who have to come together to fight it. I picked this up because it sounded alot like another book I had recently enjoyed, Stephen King's masterpiece "IT" (more about that book in a future post). I figured it would be generic and very similiar and could not have been more wrong. It was entertaining for all 600 pages but sort of fell apart at the end. While the conclusion was touching, it was a tad unrealistic and seemed hollow at times. However, that will not stop me from recommending this book to those who want to recapture small town summers of their youth. A fantastic book, terrifying at times and overall a great accomplishment of rememberance and terror. Simmons expertly captures the essence of why, deep down, we are all scared of the dark, even in the dead of sticky, hot summer nights.