I Want to Share a Secret

IT by Stephen King

He is one of the wealthiest and most famous authors of our time, he has seen his works adapted for both the big and small screen and has authored close to a hundred works. You can guarantee that fledgling writers will at some point have come across his work, held up as a shining example of modern literature. And, though he is mostly associated with the genre of horror he has also penned works that show his versatility and that have demonstrated he is just a damned good storyteller.

Oh, and, I have read about five of his novels...

Yeah. I couldn't really believe that I had read so few of Stephen King's novels either. To make things worse, I read most of those years ago when I was a teenager ,and I haven't sought to discover more of  his literary output in the intervening years which see me creeping towards old-fartdom. I do not know why, of all the things that I became excited about as an adolescent, I didn't ride a wave of joy and pleasure when reading Stephen King's novels and make much more of a dent in the list of his works available to me as a reader...

Why am I saying this now, at the age of thirty-*cough, cough*?

Well, I recently immersed myself in his novel, IT. This is probably because of the film series which, based on the 1986 novel, concluded last year and had caught my eye when I saw it advertised. I mean, Bill Skarsgard's Pennywise is striking enough to stick around in the mind for a while...

Coming back to Stephen King's works I rediscovered just how great the man is at crafting a story, creating characters that are fleshed out and believable and a world in which the reader can immerse themselves. He does what all great writers achieve, which is to create his stories so well that the readers can become lost in them. There are no irritants such as poor dialogue or information dumps to wade through that get in the way of the story. And, at close to around 1,070 pages, in my opinion, it is a very good thing that it never felt like a chore to read any of this book.

I have since purchased a few more of Mr. King's novels and intend to discover more of his books because I have some catching up to do. I let them go as a teenager and I don't think I should have. The stories are really well written, the characters are so well created that you could swear they are real and the stories stick with you after the book is finished. Also, perhaps most importantly, when I read a Stephen King book, I can tell that there is something there underneath the story, something about being human, something good.

I will be reading the novels I have yet to read and re-reading the ones I read years ago very soon.

Oh, by the way, if you really want to know something surprising, I have never even held a Harry Potter book in my hands. Not once!

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