This is (believe it or not) my first Stephen King novel.

Obviously I’ve known his name most of my life. It’s associated with horror, which, as a genre, I generally abhor. Then again, most horror I’ve experienced has been in movie form, and I mostly hate it.

However, I recently learned that he writes more than just horror — fantasy, science fiction, etc. And one of my favorite podcasters, John Siracusa, kept going on and on about the fact that King was his favorite author. So I decided to jump in. And after reading a few reddit threads and blog entries about what to read and where to start, I decided to just start from the beginning.

I really enjoyed this book. I read it in two days and was hooked very quickly. It’s a thrilling page turner.

What I didn’t expect to find was a surprisingly thoughtful look at the terror that is not fitting in in high school. I think King did a really good job of showing how horrible that world can be. And his characters were marvelous in how real they were.

Loved the book. Looking forward to others. We’ll see how the more horror-y books like It and The Shining leave me. But this one was great.

4.0 stars.