Reviews - Holly: a novel | The StoryGraph

6.04k reviews for:

Holly: a novel

Stephen King

4.04 AVERAGE

michaelmeyer7855's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous tense fast-paced

slamchowder's review against another edition

4.0

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

justhutcher's review against another edition

2.75

dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I found myself quite confused while reading this book, because I was never sure what the point of it was. From the very beggining of the story, everything is exposed to the reader. And by everything, I mean: everything. Even without having read the other books about Holly Gibney, there wasn't a single moment I felt like I didn't know what to expect from her. The same goes for every other character, whether it be the secondary ones or, oddly enough, the cannibals.
You know who the Harris are, you know what they do, why the do it, how they do it, and who they do it know. There is nothing to discover. There is no tension, no surprise, no suspense, because there is nothing at all to be worried about. Usually, reading a Stephen King book would made me worried about how likely all characters would be to survive the story. But there is something about this book that made me think none of those people would ever die (expect for the old poetess, obviously), and so I wasn't even worried about that.
The book is well written (obviously), with a great attention to details (obviously), and firmly rooted in reality (obviously), so it still was a pleasure to read. Covid and the Democrat/Republican debate were brought up a bit too many times for my liking, although I'm not american so maybe that is what it is like over there (and I did appreciate how republicans were portrayed as idiots most of the time, despites what King seems to be implying in his author's at the end)

Also, this is the third Stephen King book that I read, and the second one in which a gay guy is murdered in the first chapter. So like, hmm, ok, weird...

maren_agron's review against another edition

3.5

I would be like oh interesting thought or statement then remember a man wrote this and get annoyed

sabsreads23's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging mysterious tense slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

What can I say, I love Stephen King's books. This is a different take on horror. Usually when you hear Stephen King, you probably think 'scary, won't be able to sleep' but this was different. It was genuinely so detailed that I was physically sick lol