Like so many others I seem to run across, I read this when I was just a kid and again when I was older, unconsciously mirroring the characters in this book. Coincidence? Or fate? 
 Either way, I got my pants scared off me both times. We all float down here, I think. 
 IT, probably more than any of Stephen King's other works, is the scariest book he ever wrote, and if it wasn't for that one major flaw, a particular scene near the end, I would go on and on and on about how this book will always be an utter classic till the end of time. 
 I mean, it's jammed with bucketfuls of fantastically scary scenes, characters that are super memorable and are so easy to get fully invested in, and a town that rivals most science fiction for its sheer world-building majesty. And it's not only these things, but it's the story. It's one for the ages. It's also timeless and very much centered on the times of '58 and '85 and it's impossible not to be immersed. 
 I also think I can blame SK for making all clowns scary. I can also blame him for Rowling's ideas in Prisoner, too. Or the big bad in Full Metal Alchemist. But even better, I can trace my undying love for SK back to this book and the full realization that all his early works and a ton of his later ones are all connected in one gigantic web of ideas. 
 Of course, I laughed when someone made a comment about being put away in Shawshank. I shivered when the ghost of Christine graced the page. Even the Crimson King and the sense of all the universes crashing down showed up here. 
 But best of all, there was Derry. What a town! 
 It eats children. 
 *shiver* 
 Like I said, if it wasn't for that one flaw, I'd be raving that this is just one of those major works of imagination that should never be missed by anyone who reads anything at all. Just snipping out that scene would make this more than a classic. IT would be truly and not figuratively, be timeless. :) 
 Move aside, Pet Sematary. Stand. Gunslinger. This here book is wicked awesome and probably the reason why I fell in love with reading and wanting to be a writer for real. Anyone who could do this to someone from the other side of a page is a god. :)