The first Stephen King book that I ever read was Dreamcatcher. Ask any serious King fan, or heck, ask King himself and you will find responses generally falls long the same line; “Ooof, that’s not great.” For those of you who are unaware of the background for the book; Stephen King was in a horrible car accident in 1999, an accident that came incredibly close to taking his life. Dreamcatcher was written in the aftermath of that accident while King recuperated (King has gone on to state that the writing of the book was heavily influenced by the usage of OxyContin).

As such, it’s not a great book. It’s not even a good book to be frank. But I have memories of reading it at some point shortly after the movie adaptation came out, and enjoying it. My middle school-aged brain was drawn to the aliens, monsters, and gore that populate the book, so in that sense it accomplished it’s goal of getting me to finish it. And yet, even though I enjoyed it, I didn’t follow it up with another King work. I was knee deep in Tolkien at the time, and so it was Lord Of The Rings that my literary tastes revolved around. In fact, I wouldn’t actually pick up another of King’s books until a decade and a half later.

It was my mother-in-law who unwittingly drew me back into that world: she had the same collection of short stories sitting on an end table in her living room; The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Every time we would go over to the house it was sitting there. I never really had much of an interest in actually reading it; I probably picked it up every now and then just flipped through a few pages.

At the time, fiction really wasn’t something I was even reading anymore. For years, my interests were limited to non fiction books revolving around sports, pop culture, or history. It wasn’t until about 2017, on a spur of the moment decision, when I picked up Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and jumped back into the fiction pool wholeheartedly. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed just losing myself in a book; letting my imagination bolster whatever world the author was attempting to create.

Flash forward to March 11, 2017. I’m sitting in my mother-in-law’s living room with that copy of Bazaar staring me in the face, the same way it had done for all my previous visits. This time, however, it inspired a thought. Since I was reading fiction again, maybe I should read actually read another Stephen King book! And when it came to decide what work that was going to be, I recall there was very little debate....it had to be It. And the rest, as they say, is history.