Last October I posted a review of 11/22/63. In that post I wrote:

This was 900 pages of wasted time. I enjoyed most of it. But the ending ruined every good feeling I had about this book. Why did I read it? Nothing changed at the end of the story. Nobody got a happy ending; not even a smidge of one. It feels like a betrayal. It feels like a sucker punch right to the face.

If you go back and read that review, you can tell I was pissed off. The thing is, it’s been months, and I’m still furious. I still think about this book several times a week, if not more. Anytime I read about something that happend in the 50s or 60s, I think of this book (and that’s quite often, given my interest in history). It lives in my head, and I know why: this had the potential to be my favorite book ever written. It has everything I love in a book: solid characters, a love story, and somewhat realistic historical events. It was also superbly well written, as most things by Stephen King are.

That potential to be my favorite book is what has caused this book to live in my head for so long. Because instead of loving this book and rereading it over and over again, I hate this book. I hate it with every fiber of my being. Because that ending sucked the life out of it, and ruined everything that was good in –life– about the book.

I still, nearly 8 months later, can’t get over the ending. I can’t forgive King for writing it that way. I’m utterly furious everytime I think about because if it hadn’t ended that way I would have probably reread that book six times by now. I tend to do that a lot. But I can’t reread it because that ending isn’t going to change. I’ve even gone to see if there are any completed fanfiction stories out there that fix the ending (spoiler, there really aren’t). I want so badly to love this book, that the feeling of betrayal I felt over the ending might never go away.

I guess that’s the sign of a really good author. King wrote a book that I loved so much that the ending made me hate it. He wrote it so that it stuck with me months after I finished it, for mostly the wrong reasons. King wrote it such a way that I think about it way more than I usually do when it comes to a book I gave 1 star. But I can’t forgive him, nor will I. I’m still mad at you, Stephen King. Fuck you.

I’ll probaby write more about this book eventually. It lives in my brain, and it’s not going away anytime soon. I just wanted to post now to let King know that I still hate his bleeding guts and I hope someone steals the keys off his keyboard and the tires off of his car.