Countdown to Halloween: It Readalong

It

Written by: Stephen King
Narrated by: Steven Weber 👍
Length: 44 hrs and 55 mins 
Categories: Literature & Fiction, Horror

Welcome to Derry, Maine. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real.
They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers.

I have decided to read Stephen King's huge novel It for the Countdown to Halloween and the Fraterfest Readathon this fall. I wanted to do something to honour October/Fall/Halloween so if anyone wants to read it together with me, you are welcome to share your thoughts on your blog. I've done one before.
Feel free to use the handy blog button also to link up to this Read-a-long.
I am stepping out of my comfort zone that is why the more support the better, since...

• I don't think Stephen King's books are that terror-full, for the most part, 
• It is gigantic 
• I've seen both the It movies in preparation for this read-a-long 

Regardless here is a rough schedule to which I'll be following.

Start: October 1st

Stop 1:  October 8th at 345 pages – end of chapter 6

Stop 2: October 15th at 738 pages  – end of chapter 11

Stop 3: October 22nd at 1063 pages – end of chapter 18

End: October 31st at 1392 pages

I'll be listening to the audiobook as well because I think the narrator Steven Weber does an excellent job. So there's that.

My Thoughts:

The six Derry kids who make up the Losers Club, have been summoned back to Derry 27 years later and they all know what that means. Pennywise is back. Now they are all grown up, they have to fulfill the oath they made years ago in blood. Having no clue what will happen to them, without hesitation, except on the part of their significant other, who they leave behind and sometimes it is for the better.
I'm thinking about Beverly. She is now in a relationship with a violent drunken SOB who physically beats her and is mean and controlling like that.
It is typical for Stephen King to write stories that involve real serious issues such as domestic violence, abuse and ALL THOSE MISSING CHILDREN!
It's hard for me to read about stuff like that, and quite frankly it turns me off.
I also have an aversion to cigarettes since I quit. I dislike reading about it in a book. Anyway, smoking and domestic violence are two things I'd rather not read about.

Part 1: Chapter 1. Pennywise murders Georgie Denbrough in the street near his home.

¶ In the fall of 1957, Georgie Denbrough goes outside to play in the rain following a paper boat that his brother Bill made him. The town is flooded in rain that year and Georgie's boat was swept away. He quickly ran after it but it looked like it was going to end up in the sewer down the drain pipe. As was expected, his boat fell down the sewer drain hole on the side of the road. I felt sorry for him. However, when Georgie approached the drain hole he saw that somebody was in there.

It was a clown. Georgie was not scared because the clown spoke and he promised to give his boat back. The clown had it in his hands. The clown wanted Georgie to come and see and float. Inside the sewer.

Everything down here—floats. It, Part 1, Chapter 1 

Georgie reached for his boat and the clown grabbed his arm and pulled him in tearing off his arm. Georgie died that day but his brother didn't want to believe it. Bill Denbrough wanted to kill the sonofabitch who took his brother. There were other disappearances that year.

That clown they fought within the sewer so many years ago, is a distant memory, which they had put out from their minds and had never thought about until now. IT makes them remember how terrifying it was. I don't blame them, however, none of Stephen King's books that I have read so far, are scary IMO. His writings feel too archaic like he's stuck in the mid-1900s and lacks lustre.