Holly : A Very Short Review

The latest book from the king of horror, Holly, in my opinion has nothing to do with horror. It felt like a propaganda piece that went horribly overboard. The story is mildly interesting, the character of Holly still there and the supporting characters are as stock and forgettable as they come. The biggest fall came for the villains. From Tommyknockers, immortal adversaries and ancient evil, the King has fallen to old farts addicted in vodsel* steak and cream.

The book begins well with a guy jogging in a creepy park after the dark getting abducted and waking up in a basement cage. Typical King opening, but from there it goes down the drain. Both the body parts of the jogger and the story goes down. I will not spoil the book for those who want to read it, but I would recommend not to waste a few days on this. Not worth the time.

Holly, as we were introduced in the Bill Hodges trilogy, The Outsider and last seen in If It Bleeds is still an interesting character. She still shows the quirks of the spectrum, complex relations with her family and a keen sense of detective skills. What spoiled the character was when King decided to make her vomit all his disdain and contempt for Trump and the Covid protesters. For the first few times, the reader could agree with King or ignore it based on one’s politics but the same theme of bashing antimaskers, MAGA’ners keeps repeating in the book with increasing intensity. That sticks out like the hairy mole on a face that you just can’t ignore. 

I understand and empathize with King's anger with the division Trump has brought to the Americans and the thousands of needless deaths due to sheer idiocy, but dedicating real estate on every other page in a novel to point it out feels so out of place. It simply takes the focus out of the story. And to be frank, the story is not that great when compared to his recent works including Fairy Tale,The Institute or Billy Summers. 

Holly the character is still salvageable. She shined the best as an investigator and destroyer of paranormal evil. King’s best works are the ones that brush upon the same. Unfortunately, this book was not only well written, but appears to be written in a hurry. I felt the King needed a vessel to vent his anger and wrote this over the weekend. 

Mr King, we expect better of you, the constant reader deserves better.

*If you don’t know what Vodsel is, I would highly highly recommend reading Under the Skin by Michel Faber, an amazing and thought provoking si-fi/horror book. There is a movie starring Scarlett Johansson showing a lot of skin, but as always, the movie does no justice to the book. Still watchable for different reasons.