it has everything you could possibly want in a book, probably because it is like 1300 pages long! read this for the first time a couple (almost 10?!) years ago and it really is the perfect summer break book. very nice to get lost in and it transports you to each setting so vividly. almost didn’t watch the movie version that came out last year because i wanted to leave my mental images of the book untouched.
Jun 2, 2025
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i put it down on page 430 i think, from chapter 31 to whatever chapter page 430 ia on, i found it a slog. I think it was o me, but i had no idea who was who, and what was going on haha
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Buckle up for a longer one ~~ The book the iconic Visconti film of the same title is based on, the leopard is a luxurious multigenerational magnum opus that explores the demise of an aristocracy and a noble family in power at the time, the Sicilian family of Don Fabrizio, The Leopard. This book is the exact opposite of those vacation reads I rec’d above. It’s some effort to read, but worth it ~ an exercise in extravagance, lush and lavish environments, theatrical parties, and mouth matering feasts. Don Fabrizio is a decadent prince who has become numb to his opulent lifestyle, bringing the jesuit priest with him everywhere to make amends with God as he continues to commit cardinal sins. He carries this numbness beyond his lifestyle, to how he handles the signs of the falling aristocracy - failing to act but rather observing as the world changes around him. His nephew, Tancredi, is his foil, willing the changes in his world that Don Fabrizio dreads. Their relationship, as well as the rest of the families, feels so full and fleshed out, I truly understand and relate to each of their motives. The Leopard is a true work of art.
Sep 1, 2022
“Oh, that book.” Yes.
I feel like It is thought of more often as a concept of a book/story or dismissed with a “Yeah, yeah” rather than considered an actual thing you can sit down and read. Not that it is generally despised (other than *that* scene, and yes, I completely agree), but I feel as if so few people care enough to try reading it. And with its massively popular adaptation into the 2017/2019 films, the way It as a story is viewed by the public has completely changed, and today’s tweens probably don’t even know who the director of the films is, let alone Stephen King.
Last summer, I read this book. I started it at the beach at home, but on that fateful day, the waves crashed onto my family’s belongings, taking with them a lunchbox of fruits and one flip-flop of mine (RIP). The next day, we left for a five-day trip, so I was stuck with a very old, very waterlogged, engorged, warped copy of the book. On the very long car rides over the next days, I knocked out over half of It, and spent scorching days by the pool doing the same. On the way home, I began to wrap it up.
When I got back, a hardcover was waiting in the mail for me. And with the last moments of my carefree summer days, I sat in the sunset with my brand new copy of an old story, living vicariously through 7 kids experiencing their last summer together. The red light of the fading yet radiant sunset shone onto my face, and the darkness settled in as I turned the last page.
I have never felt so many things at once. With me, I carried a palpable yet arguably unfounded sense of nostalgia endlessly afterward, and I felt as if I had lived through multiple childhoods and adulthoods in just one summer. I felt devastated and content, hopeless and happy. There is no one emotion I could tie to experiencing 1153 pages of It. It’s just It. It amazes me that on my shelf is an entire world, embossed with the proud “FROM THE LIBRARY OF,” expectant, waiting to be reopened, re-experienced, relived.
This summer will forever be engrained in my memory, and although I say this as a young person, the summer I spent in Sequoia Tree Park amidst gargantuan trees and rolling mountainscapes is the summer I grew up with seven Losers, just trying to get by and go forth with their lives.
Jan 28, 2025
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Currently traumatizing myself by also casting the movie in my head and let me tell you, Toni Collete, that you will not be snubbed again come Oscar season.
(Full review eventually. Maybe not. It's really good and I'm on page 68. Read it.)
Feb 24, 2025
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