A spoiler free review of Stephen King’s latest novel Holly
King’s latest novel Holly was released on September 5th, a day that I had popped into Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake, and ended up leaving with four books. Oops.
Barnes and Nobel was full of people excited to get their hands on a copy of Holly, I overheard several other customers ask where they could find it, before being directed to the large display at the front of the store. I had somehow missed it on my way in as well. I had Tom Lake on my mind when I walked into the store that day, but Holly had been on my radar for a while, I some how had forgotten it was the release date. So I ended up going home with not one, but two new hardcover books that day. One thing about me: I hate hardcovers.
Poor Tom Lake has been sitting on my bedside table unread. Simply because the swift approach, or my anticipation of, autumn had put me in a spooky mood. Spookier than usual, anyways.
King has not been my go to author for horror that scares or disturbs me in quite some time. As a kid I read Everything’s Eventual, a collection of his short stories, and that certainly did disturb me. But I’ve come a long way as a reader of horror, and as an inhabitant of Earth, and subsequently it takes a lot to disturb me these days.
The reason I was looking forward to Holly, which is not a supernatural horror, and in fact is more of a thriller, is because Holly Gibney has been a favorite character of mine ever since I read The Outsider. It’s no secret that she is also a favorite of Stephen King’s as well, and printed on the back of my hardcover, amidst a cherry red sunset and star speckled sky, is this quote by King:
“I could never let Holly Gibney go. She was supposed to be a walk-on character in Mr. Mercedes and she just stole the book and stole my heart. Holly is all her.”
So of course King is very fond of Holly, so fond of her that she makes an appearance in the Bill Hodges Trilogy, The Outsider, If it Bleeds and now has a book of her own. I’m sad to say that Holly’s book, wasn’t a home run for me.
There are some very specific reasons why I didn’t love this book like I thought I would. One of them, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit, is that I’ve been in love with the cover since I’d first seen it in an Instagram ad months before the release. Yes, that’s right, I do judge books by their cover, and this one had my hopes high. I guess you could say I had Holly Hope. Even more so, after I saw on TikTok that people had found out their copies of Holly glow in the dark. Only for me to end up sitting in my pitch black bathroom with an ordinary hardcover. That’s right, mine doesn’t glow, but it did work for at least one of my friends, so if you have a copy there’s still hope for you. Go ahead. Try it!
That’s not the real issue I had with the book. While I will judge a book by its cover, and buy far more than I should because of them, I don’t judge stories by their covers. That, I would never do.
Anyone who follows King on Twitter knows how outspoken he is on politics and Covid and many other issues. Let me first say, I wholeheartedly believe that art in all its forms is inherently political. I don’t believe that you can fully separate the two, because every artist, every person, is a product of their political environment. Whether you think you are a political person or not, politics affect you. With something as big as Covid and the recent pandemic, it’s unavoidable that it’s going to show up in art and media that we consume going forward.
Still, I was NOT prepared for the berating that King unleashed on “Trumpers” and “Anti-vaxxers” in the first few chapters of this book. I don’t quite recall, if he came out and called people who hold these beliefs idiots, but I wouldn’t be surprised and he might as well have, it would have been more concise, at least.
I’ll be the first to admit that Trump is not my guy, MAGA is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time and I did receive all three Covid vaccines (microchips included). So it’s not that disagree with most of King’s political beliefs, it’s just the way that he inserted them into this particular story, that prevented me from loving it.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that almost every single first greeting between two characters went something like this:
Character 1: You vaxxed?
Character 2: Yup, Moderna, you?
Character 1: Yup, Johnson & Johnson.
Character 2: Great, now we can get back to the story line so Holly can track down a pair of psychotic old people.
While that was an over-simplification of King’s storytelling, I’m not joking, all of the three major vaccine manufacturers were mentioned at least once. The characters were also constantly talking about masks, putting on masks, pulling up their masks, and wearing gloves when they didn’t need to. I wore a mask during covid too, and I get that this was and is a significant event that will be recorded in our history through art and storytelling and fiction like Holly. I just think it was overkill here. So much so, that it really had me struggling to get into the story for a considerable chunk of it.
I’m not one to DNF a book quickly, but if I wasn’t reading this for a book club, I don’t know that I would have finished it, and that would have been a shame because there were some parts I really enjoyed later on.
I also will say, that the mere mention of Trump in a piece fiction (so many times), actually did disturb me. I know fiction is allowed to be influenced by reality, but sometimes, most of the time, I just want to escape to a world where that big orange oaf doesn’t exist and maybe never did.
I’ll also acknowledge that I know Holly is a quirky girl. She has OCD tendencies and is a bit of a hypochondriac, and her mother did die of Covid, so of course SHE would be extremely cautious and thinking about covid a lot during the pandemic. That is certainly reflected well in the book. What took away from Holly’s story, in my opinion, was what felt to me like King’s personal anger bleeding through the pages. You have over sixty other books Stephen! This one was supposed to be Holly’s!
If you can look past the Trump talk and the exaggerated covid greetings, you will find a thriller where Holly Gibney attempts to track down a potential serial killer, before it’s too late, to find the daughter of a complicated mother daughter duo. All this while she is dealing with the grief of losing her mother, who was the other half to her own complex mother daughter relationship.
This novel is certainly a thriller and not so much a mystery, because we as the reader are one or two steps ahead of Holly at all times. During Holly’s quest to find out what happened to several missing people, we pick up some other storytelling gems along the way.
One of my favorite things about King’s storytelling, and in my opinion what he does best, is the way he masterfully creates glimpses of wholesome human-connections between unlikely characters. You may know him for his strange and disturbing horror, but I adore these little pockets of sunshine, amidst his darker content. He did this with Holly and Bill Hodges, he did this in Fairy tale with Charlie and Mr. Bowditch (and you can’t forget Radar). I didn’t even like the second half of Fairy tale, but I couldn’t DNF it simply because I needed to make sure that grumpy old man’s dog would be okay.
I won’t spoil it here, but King gives us one of these in Holly as well. It was my favorite part of the story, in which King imparts on us, some of his wisdom on the craft of writing in a non-direct way. While, you’ll find this book features major themes of aging along with the declining both mentally and physically that comes with it, I can’t help but think that King, well into his 70s, must be reflecting on his monumental career as a writer. For me, it was really lovely to see King shine through a character in this way.
While some of the characters felt so flawlessly authentic to me, some did not. I felt like King had some trouble writing younger characters in this one. I could be wrong, maybe it’s a regional thing coupled with my ignorance, but I’ve never heard anyone in their twenties or younger refer to someone as “a pill.” I’ve also never heard anyone in their twenties or anyone in this decade say “She was steppin dynamite. Legs all the way up.”
It was that and the heavy political intro that really complicated things for me. I just can’t fully get into a story when I’m rolling my eyes every other page. I’m sorry Mr. King, I will continue to read your books and you will continue to not know that I exist or be affected by my opinions. As it should be.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for sticking with me. I hope this helps you decide whether or not you want to read Holly, or if you already have, I’d love to hear your experience with it.
Right now on Goodreads Holly has a 4.24/5 star rating. Personally I’d rate it 3.5/5
I would have liked to love it and wish I could have given it 4+ but it has left me with a deep mistrust of old people.