It is one of the best conceived horror novels I've ever read. 7 young children are drawn together through a fatalistic chain of events. They feel a connection, a camaraderie, and little do they know that they all have individually experienced the darkest unknown that can only be described as It, a chasm of horror that would drive any adult to the point of madness. Because they are children, they are able to cope with this madness. Children's minds are still trying to get a sense of the world, unyet able to always distinguish fiction from reality. An adult's mind is more rigid with its firm understanding of how it thinks the Universe ticks; however, when he or she faces that dark Lovecraftian abyss, the mind will crack, and at that point there is no turning back. 
 When we stare into that darkness we see a face. The face often changes, but most usually it takes on the image of a clown. Traditionally clowns are faces that cause us to grin and laugh. Stephen King twists that idea on its head and shows us that behind that jocular exterior is the true face of Fear. The children name that monster It, a vicious killer that feeds on the flesh and fear of people. It also has the power to awaken the evil that lies dormant inside our darkest subconscious. 
 What I find most scary about It is not the creature itself despite the fact that It is pure evil, it is the people of Derry that are the most frightening, the people who have a tendency to look the other way when someone is being murdered, the people who have a sense of ease when killing someone for simply being different. These are the true horrors of the novel because I know that that evil exists. We can see it in our society. As much as we might hate to believe, Stephen King's It is living underneath our own cities, perhaps not kidnapping children, but still driving the otherwise ordinary people to the brink of madness and violence. That is the true horror. 
 If you're looking for a novel that is not afraid to stare directly into the darkness, I strongly recommend reading It. I know of no other horror story with such vivid frightening scenes. I don't think I can ever get out of my head the image of Pennywise the Clown dragging the gay man out of the river, holding him over Its shoulder, and biting a chunk of flesh from his armpit while smiling. Stephen King has a knack for distilling what is the most terrifying about our society and giving that fear a twisted, clownish face, a face that if we ever glimpsed in reality would surely drive ourselves to madness.