Justin's Reviews > Holly

Full review plus a ranking of every Holly Gibney story now on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/0x4-gmw5Jmc?si=63hB_...-

Ignore the negative reviews. This is the best Holly story King has written.

I received an automated call from my local library on Tuesday, September 5 informing me one of my holds had arrived. I only had one book on hold, and it just so happen to be that book’s release date. Did my library actually get a copy of a brand new book on release day, put my name on it, and call me to come pick it up? They did. That had never happened to me before, so I dropped what I was doing (which was of much, if anything) and rushed to the library.

HOLLY was on a shelf right up at the front, waiting for me. I grabbed the book, and a copy of Yellowface since I was mildly interested in that, too, and ran back to my car. I might not have actually ran, but I definitely power-walked. I grabbed the book and power-walked to my car.

I spent the past month reading back through the Bill Hodges trilogy, The Outsider, and the If It Bleeds novella. I actually enjoyed most of those stories more on a second read, but I still didn’t have a very high bar set for HOLLY. I thought she was a decent minor character in other books, but I wasn’t sure what else King had in store for her, especially in the spotlight with her own story. Also, I have now learned my issues with Holly is less about her character and much more related to Sill Patton’s impression of her in the audiobooks. It’s just not good at all. I wouldn’t recommend learning about Holly’s backstory that way. Just read the other books with your eyes.

Anyway, HOLLY greatly exceeded my expectations. She’s grown tremendously as a character and so has all of the supporting cast around her. Jerome and Brenda are back. Pete’s still kind of around, I guess. But this story is much better than anything from the Hodges trilogy or whatever came after it. All of the issues I had with the other Holly stories are nowhere to be found in this book, and King actually sticks the landing this time. Seriously, halfway through the book I started wondering when it was going to all fall apart. With 50 pages left, I waited for something ridiculous to happen to ruin the whole book. None of that ever happened. The book is fantastic from start to finish. It’s very grounded compared to the other stories Holly appears in, and the villains of this story are completely unexpected… and gross.

Alright, so let’s address the elephant in the room. You’re gonna bump into plenty of one-star reviews that talk about how politically charged this thing is and how King’s left wing liberal work agenda blah blah blah. Here’s the thing - the book is set primarily in 2021 with prior events occurring several years prior to that. There’s a lot of COVID stuff, there’s some election stuff, there’s some jabs at Trump, but it never bothered me. It doesn’t distract from the plot, and it helps ground the book in the reality of the time. King definitely has his opinions, and, if you’ve read anything from him recently, you know what those are. Even if you disagree, I don’t think it takes away from the overall story. I actually enjoyed reading a book set during COVID because it reminded me of how crazy things were just a short time ago. Just two years ago, but it feels like much longer than that. It will be interesting to read this again a decade or two from now as a little time capsule of what things were like in 2020-2021. If you can’t get past his politics or don’t want that stuff included in your reading, I guess you could skip this, but you’re missing out.

Honestly, the biggest issue isn’t King’s politics, it’s his interpretation of how young adults in 2021 talk to each other. I think he’s stuck in the 1950s when he writes dialogue for younger people. It’s not Stand By Me anymore, man. There’s a scene with a group of kids that felt like it was decades old, and one character says “mondo” at one point. That stuff is much more distracting or pulls you out of the story than anything political injected into this story. That’s my only real complaint here, but it’s fine.

Really glad I was able to grab this so quickly from the library. I ripped through it in just a few days, and it was much better than I expected. Now, I should probably be a good little library patron and return it so the next person on the list can read it as soon as possible.