The Monster of Nostalgia: A Review of It

There’s no polite way to say this, so I’ll just spit it out: It is a mess. A brilliant mess, a bloated mess, sometimes even a beautiful mess, but a mess all the same. Reading it feels like bingeing an entire season of television in one sitting, only to realize half the episodes are filler, and the main villain is…a cosmic spider-clown from outer space.

Yeah. That’s It.

The elevator pitch is legendary. A group of kids in the small town of Derry, Maine, discovers a monster that preys on children by taking on their worst fears. They face it, they fight it, they kill it (kinda). Then, twenty-seven years later, they return as adults because the monster isn’t dead after all. Childhood trauma collides with supernatural evil, wrapped in nostalgia and the decay of small-town life. Sounds impressive, right? And at its best, it is. The problem is, King didn’t just write the story. He exorcised every childhood fear, every dirty joke, every meandering side plot he could dream up. The result is a book that’s part masterpiece, part doorstop, and part “did we really need 1,000 words on sewer maintenance?”

Let’s get this out of the way. Pennywise is one of the most iconic villains in the horror genre. On paper, anyway. The shape-shifting clown, the embodiment of childhood fears, the predator who hunts where we’re most vulnerable. Brilliant. And when King leans into that, the book soars. But Pennywise also suffers from what I call “the horror inflation problem.” The longer you explain the monster, the less scary it gets. By the time we’re dealing with ancient cosmic turtles and inter-dimensional battles, the clown has gone from terrifying to…Saturday morning cartoon. And yet, I’ll give him this. Pennywise works as a metaphor. He’s trauma. He’s abuse. He’s the nightmare you thought you outgrew, but that still lives in your bones. He’s the reason you still don’t like storm drains, even as an adult.

This is where the book shines, and where it stumbles. The childhood sections are electric. The Losers’ Club, riding bikes, telling crude jokes, facing monsters that only kids can truly believe in, it’s raw and alive. You feel the summer air, the mosquito bites, the sheer terror of being eleven years old and realizing the world is a lot darker than you were told. Then we cut to the adults. And suddenly, it feels like the spark is gone. Yes, they’re traumatized. Yes, they’re dealing with the fallout. But the adult sections drag. They’re weighed down by exposition, repetitive inner monologues, and the kind of “catching up” that feels more like therapy transcripts than storytelling. King’s point is clear: childhood trauma never really leaves. We bury it, we forget it, but it waits, and when it returns, we’re powerless. That’s powerful. But did we need 1,100 pages to get there?

When I read It, I couldn’t stop thinking about Obsessed, my own story about a woman whose distorted perception of reality poisons everything she touches. In Obsessed, the horror isn’t supernatural; it’s psychological. A mind so warped by negativity that it sees monsters everywhere, even in the mirror. Isn’t that Pennywise, too? The monster doesn’t exist in one true form. It exists in what you fear, in what you can’t stop seeing. In that sense, It is just a giant metaphor for obsession: the way our minds latch onto a fear or trauma and replay it until it becomes our reality. Derry is the town version of that woman in Obsessed. Rotting under the surface. Smiling on the outside, poisoned within. Pretending everything’s fine while the sewers churn with filth and blood. And like her, the town can’t escape itself.

Here’s where I have to get brutally honest. It is really about nostalgia, and nostalgia is one of the most dangerous drugs we have. In one of my Real Talk essays, I wrote about how we romanticize the past, even the painful parts, because it’s easier than facing the present. We scroll through old photos, we replay old songs, we tell ourselves “things were better then.” But were they? Or are we just like the Losers, returning to Derry, forgetting the pain until it claws its way back up? King nails this. The adults don’t want to go back. They’ve built lives on forgetting. But nostalgia — like trauma — is a liar. It promises comfort, but what it really does is drag you back into the sewer.

Here’s the thing: It is also funny. Not always intentionally, but often. The kids’ banter is crude, awkward, and ridiculous, exactly how kids talk. The image of a demonic clown waving balloons while lurking in a storm drain? Absurd, even as it’s terrifying. And sometimes the humor is unintentional. The cosmic turtle. The bizarre sex scene in the sewers (you know the one). The endless tangents. Reading It sometimes feels like listening to your drunk uncle tell a story: brilliant in parts, tedious in others, occasionally horrifying, and always too long.

Let’s be real: It didn’t need to be this long. There’s brilliance in its pages, but also indulgence. The book meanders. It repeats itself. It gets lost in side plots that add atmosphere but kill momentum. I respect King for swinging big, for trying to capture not just a monster story, but an entire town’s soul. But ambition isn’t always discipline. Sometimes less is more.

If Obsessed taught me anything, it’s that perception shapes reality. The protagonist in that story views the world as a hostile and ugly place, and thus it becomes one. Derry works the same way. The town is rotten because its people let it be that way. Pennywise is strong because the Losers believe he is. In both cases, the monster isn’t just outside. It’s inside. It’s what you carry, what you feed, what you refuse to let go of.

For all my criticisms — and there are plenty — I can’t deny that It matters because it captures something true: that childhood is both magical and terrifying, that trauma echoes for decades, that nostalgia is both comfort and curse. It matters because, more than a clown, Pennywise is everything we’re afraid to admit still scares us.

So, is It worth reading? Yes. But be prepared. It’s too long. It’s uneven. It’s frustrating. And yet, it’s also unforgettable. It’s the kind of book you wrestle with, argue with, laugh at, and occasionally want to throw across the room; and that, in its own way, makes it great. The real horror is this: one day you’ll find yourself staring at the past, convinced you’ve outgrown it, only to hear a faint chuckle from the shadows.

And when you do, you’ll know it never really left.

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