Several friends suggested I read “11/22/63”… everyone said I’d love it. They were right.
With the Back to the Future trilogy being my favorite movies of all time and other favorites like Quantum Leap, Looper, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Groundhog Day, Life on Mars (US) The Time Machine (the 1960 version!), Frequency and many others, it isn’t really a surprise that I liked this story. The time travel element is interesting and not too overwhelming or random.
The question is, if you could go back in time to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from shooting John F. Kennedy (or finding out if there really were other shooters) – would you? Pretend that you could go back. But, what if your ‘time machine’ couldn’t actually deliver you to the November 22, 1963 – what if it ONLY took you to a day in 1958? And each time you went back, you went back to the exact same date and time, but only two minutes elapsed each time you returned to ‘the present’? Would you be willing to wait… for five years… to stop Oswald?
Stabilized Zapruder film 
I loved the setup of the story. I really loved the many references to the time. Music, specific locations, food, businesses, people, publications. So many I recognized, but plenty I didn’t. Ben Ackerman suggested I check out a website called “Small Demons” (kind of like how IMDb is for movies, this is for books.) The historical facts woven into the story really sucked me in to 1958 and the years that followed. So did Sadie.
I’m not usually a fan of love interests in movies, books and TV shows as they’re usually formulaic and contrived. I feel like it was the case here as well.. but unlike other stories, I fell in love with Sadie.
The conclusion was satisfying and FAR more emotional than I thought it would be, especially considering I didn’t live during the Kennedy era. I wish I could re-read the book again to experience the same emotions, but like everything in life, you can’t re-live the past.