IT by Stephen King for the Stephen King Project

I am in love Stephen King!  (no worries, the Handyman knows this and he is okay with it---he might  even have a little crush himself)

Long  before I fell in love with him,  he and I were just friends.  I liked him fine, enjoyed a couple of his books, never thought of him much.   I saw him and his wife, Tabitha on a BookTV special once  (roll your eyes if you've heard this before---my kids do, and I'm certain I've mentioned it on my blog before), where I heard him use the word 'lover' while talking about his wife.
It creeped me out.   

It creepd me out, not that he and his wife were.... (sigh) lovers (they should be), but that he used the word: lover.
It's not one of my favorite.  
Boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse, in a relationship with...Those are words I get.  I just don't use the word  lover...comfortably.    (Apparently I have no trouble writing it tho.)

What Stephen King said in that interview, when asked how he and his wife make their relationship work, (Having two authors with egos in the same house) was  that "we are lovers first, then parents, then authors."
It makes sense, but I felt like he should have lit up a cigarette and pulled up a sheet, cuz that image goes with that word for me.  (I have issues with words.  I probably need professional help)

I guess that interview intrigued me tho, because I began to read more of SK and the more I read the deeper I fell. 
I was head over heels with his work, so when I came upon   The Stephen King Project at  Coffee and a Book Chick     earlier this year,
I thought what fun this would be.  And I could realistically shoot for "A Lil Bit of King".

What Are the Commitment Levels?

• A King Novice: 1 book
• A Lil Bit of King: 3 books
• A King to Balance It All: 6 books
• A King Legend: 9 books
• A King for All Seasons: 12+ books

I am currently one book down and in the middle of my second.

This post is about the book "IT". 
I read  IT because I wanted to read  "11/22/63", but my daughter-in-law said that it references the book IT, a lot.  So, of course I had to read IT first.  
I'm SO GLAD I did.  It was a great book! 

from Goodreads:
 A promise made twenty-eight years ago calls seven adults to reunite in Derry, Maine, where as teenagers they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city's children. Unsure that their Losers Club had vanquished the creature all those years ago, the seven had vowed to return to Derry if IT should ever reappear. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that summer return as they prepare to do battle with the monster lurking in Derry's sewers once more.

I am always fascinated by the way King can describe scenes, situations, feelings, to make you seem as if you are right there, or as if you know exactly how the character is feeling.  So much more than any author can--at least for me.

from IT, page 200:
at first, the school had been full of sounds: slamming locker doors, the clackety clack of Mrs. Thomas's typewriter in the office, the slightly off-key choral renditions of the glee club upstairs, the nervous thud, thud,thud of basketballs from the gym and the scrooch and thud of sneakers as the players drove toward the baskets or cut turns on the polished wood floor.

NO KIDDING!!  I can remember this in Jr. High.  Just reading those words, I can even smell the old musty Jr High smells.  And that is why I love him so... I love how he takes me there. Inside his books.

Something else that also intrigues me is how he uses kids in this book--the loser group of kids, if you will--to tell such a great story.   He can recollect what it felt like to be a kid.  How many of us can do that now?  As adults we grow and leave childish ways behind, right?  We forget what it feels like, but not Stephen King.  He knows how to put words on  a page that can make us summon up  feelings of our own childhood and we  sympathize with the characters.  He uses loser groups of kids in this book  (as well as The Body/Stand By Me), but I think at some point in our childhoods, we can all identify with that group. Or have empathy for them at least.

He might start out to tell a scary story, but he is also a master at relationship and detail.  Yes, IT is about a scary clown terrorizing and murdering children, but yet...it is so much more than that.   (roll your eyes again, if you will, all ye non SK lovers!)   (Oh my gawd....I used the word lover.  Different context tho, so its okay ~smiles~)

IT is about relationships, fears,  not being understood, small towns, and oh yeah, a very scary monster in a clown suit committing murder.

Try IT, you'll like IT.

and it's not too late to sign up for the SK Project.  It runs thru the end of the  year.