Holly

 

Holly – by Stephen King

This is one of those books that I knew I wouldn’t like before I ever picked it up. I read it because I’ve read just about everything that Stephen King has ever written.  But I knew I wouldn’t like it.  I don’t like Holly Gibney.  This is the 6^th or 7^th book (or short story) that features her.  Stephen King likes her, and to be fair, so do many of his readers, so I guess I need to accept the fact that I’m in the minority.  After (finally) finishing this thing, I really really hope we’ve seen the last of her, but somehow I find that doubtful.

Holly is a private investigator.  We first met her in Stephen King books as an assistant to Bill Hodges.  Now that Bill Hodges has died (after a trilogy of books), Holly is the main investigator and also the main character.  Being that these stories are Stephen King stories, there’s a lot of weirdness in these tales, but this really isn’t the issue.  I just don’t like Holly Gibney.

It’s not that she’s nasty, ugly, or unlikeable. The big problem I have with her is that her obsessive compulsive disorder behaviors drive me up the wall. It also seems as though Stephen King feels as he has to become an obsessive compulsive writer when writing about his obsessive compulsive protagonist.  Quite often, we read several paragraphs of what Holly is thinking or doing when one or two sentences would suffice.  The biggest annoyance in this book around Holly and her tendencies is COVID.  This book was written during the COVID pandemic, and we have to read far too much about its residual effects on everyday life in this story.  It’s highly annoying, stupid, unnecessary and completely unrealistic.

I must say that I agree with the authors treatment of the virus, which has idiotically become ridiculously political.  Note to readers everywhere: if you’re one of those people who prefers to ignore science and get your COVID information from conspiracy videos, you will not like how the interactions go in this book.  The fact that I agree with Mr. King and still found the constant idiotic references annoying tells you just how far off the deep end King goes.  EVERYTIME Holly enters a room, she has to first have a conversation with whomever she encounters about COVID.  We hear whether or not they’re vaccinated (usually they are, but we have to be subjected with a character telling about an moronic relative who is not. This moron relative, of course, is a Donald Trump supporter), we have to hear about all the intricacies of the wearing of masks, all of the lore about the vulnerable, the sick, the uneducated, and on and on.  Had I enjoyed the book (remember I didn’t) then these detours would have brought down my enjoyment a notch.  Since I didn’t like the book, these ridiculously repetitive elements just made a bad story worse.

Now, normally when I write reviews of novels, I don’t like to reveal much about the plot.  But I thought this thing was so stupid, I feel it’s my duty.  The story that Holly gets intwined with has to do with disappearing individuals.  Why are they disappearing?   Because there’s an older couple who kidnaps them and eats them.  Feel free to read that last sentence again.  I didn’t mistype that.  Apparently this older couple is getting real old, they’re in a lot of pain, so eating certain fresh human organs can briefly relieve their aches and pains.  At least until it’s time to kidnap and cannibalize the next victim.  It almost made reading about COVID over and over again somewhat desirable.

There’s a few diversions within this story that seem to do nothing but make the book unnecessarily longer. We read a lot about a young person’s entering poetry contests, and about Holly’s obsession with her recently deceased mother.  I found the whole thing extremely long and unpleasant.

The only bright spot is that the e-version of this book that I read had a “bonus” novella that is part of an upcoming Stephen King book titled “You Like it Darker”.  The story “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream” is featured in its entirety (odd since usually these bonus features only include a chapter or two) and it was incredibly enjoyable.  Since it was part of an e-reader, I have no idea how long page-wise the story was, but I would guess 100-125 pages.  The fact that I enjoyed it so much cemented my opinion that I wasn’t “just grouchy” while reading the main book.  I managed to get through the bonus story in about two or three sittings.  So I’m happy to say my time wasn’t completely wasted.

Again, there are a LOT of readers that like Holly Gibney, so don’t just go by my review.  If you’re not crazy about her in the other books though, take heed that this story is pretty much like all the other ones.