Forty-Six Hours in Derry (And I Regret Nothing)
Okay, so. I need to confess something. I'm not really a horror person. Like, at all. My abuela used to say I was demasiado sensible for scary movies, and she wasn't wrong. I once had nightmares for a week after watching the trailer for the It movies. The TRAILER. So naturally, when I decided to tackle the actual 46-hour audiobook while working on a massive branding project, my friends thought I'd lost it.
But here's the thing—this book isn't really horror. I mean, yes, there's a shape-shifting clown demon that eats children (casual), but at its heart? It is about friendship. It's about childhood trauma and the way it echoes through your whole life. It's about seven kids who love each other so fiercely they literally defeat evil with the power of believing in each other. And honestly? I ugly-cried at least four separate times. Not from fear. From feelings.
Steven Weber Made Me Care About Everyone
I went into this knowing nothing about Steven Weber except that he was apparently in some 90s sitcom my mom liked. But within the first hour, I was completely sold. This man does not just read the book—he becomes every single character. And in a book with this many POVs and this much time-jumping? That's no small feat.
The Losers Club kids each have their own voice, their own rhythm. Stuttering Bill's halting speech pattern broke my heart every single time. Richie's rapid-fire jokes and terrible impressions (the impressions are supposed to be bad, and Weber commits to that bit beautifully). Beverly's quiet strength. Eddie's anxious energy. Ben's gentle sweetness. Mike's steady calm. Stan's dry wit. I could close my eyes and know exactly who was talking within seconds.
And Pennywise? Look. I listened to a lot of this at 2 AM while finishing design work, and Weber's Pennywise voice made me actually look over my shoulder in my own apartment. It's not just creepy—it's wrong in this deeply unsettling way that crawls under your skin. The way he shifts from playful to predatory mid-sentence? Yikes. My cats were giving me concerned looks.
The Length Is Actually the Point
I know what you're thinking. Forty-six hours. FORTY-SIX HOURS. That's almost two full days of continuous listening. Who has time for that?
But here's where I'll defend King's infamous wordiness: this book needs to be long. The whole point is that you're living in Derry. You're marinating in this town's cursed history, in the small moments between the kids, in the way trauma works its way into every corner of adult life. The slow burn is the experience. By the time the Losers reunite as adults, I felt like I was returning to a place I'd lived. I knew these people. I'd spent weeks with them.
That said—and I need to be honest here—there are sections that drag. King goes on these tangents about Derry's history that, while technically relevant, had me zoning out while I adjusted kerning for the hundredth time. The interludes about the town's violent past are interesting in theory but feel like homework in practice. I found myself wishing for a "skip to the Losers" button more than once.
Also, there's some stuff in this book that has aged... poorly. A scene near the end involving Beverly and the boys is genuinely uncomfortable, and I don't think time has been kind to King's reasoning for including it. It pulled me out of the story in a way that felt jarring against everything else.
This Book Felt Like Returning Home (To a Haunted Home, But Still)
What got me—what really, truly got me—was the way King writes about childhood friendship. The way the Losers love each other is so pure and desperate and real. These kids are outcasts and weirdos and they find each other and suddenly the world makes sense. And then they grow up and forget, because that's what adults do. We forget the magic. We forget the terror. We forget the people who saved us.
There's a scene where adult Ben thinks about the clubhouse they built as kids, and I had to pause the audiobook because I was crying too hard to focus on my work. It reminded me of summers at my abuela's house, running around with my cousins, feeling invincible in that way you only can when you're eleven and the world hasn't broken you yet. She would have hated this book—too scary, too long, too American—but she would have understood what it was really about.
My heart. MY HEART.
Who Should Float Down Here With Me
If you need fast-paced horror, this isn't it. If you want a quick listen for your commute, absolutely not (unless your commute is six weeks long). But if you want to sink into a story that's really about love and loss and the friends who shape us? If you want a narrator who will make you feel like you're watching a movie in your head? If you have a massive project that requires 46 hours of background audio anyway?
This is your book.
I listened at 1.0x because Weber's pacing is perfect as-is, and honestly, I wanted to savor the character moments. The emotional payoff in the final act—when the adult Losers finally remember everything—hits so much harder when you've spent all that time with them.
Abuela would have clutched her rosary through the whole thing. But I think she would have cried at the end too.
