Jake Epping, a 35 year-old English teacher, goes back in time to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination in Stephen King’s new novel 11/22/63.

The book is not intended to answer any “What- if” questions that you may expect from a time travel novel. The main hook of the novel doesn’t come from Jake attempting to stop the assassination, but rather the assortment of characters that you come to know and associate with. Much of the book shows Epping spying on Lee Harvey Oswald, but not much comes of it until the last stretch of the book.

It’s obvious that King did an enormous amount of research for this novel as historical miscellanea appear throughout the book such as the price of a haircut (40¢), names of old products, etc. This makes the book feel more realistic and interesting, but sometimes it often adds fluff to the already thick book. At 800+ pages the book is a little bloated with parts that should have been cut to make the pacing better, but it’s not a deal breaker.

So when reading 11/22/63 don’t expect any paradoxes or anything that we’ve seen repeatedly in time travel novels. It’s just another extraordinary story told by a man who’s written them time and time again.