Reviews - Holly: a novel | The StoryGraph

6.09k reviews for:

Holly: a novel

Stephen King

4.04 AVERAGE

danieljoyce's review against another edition

4.0

dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mlsmiley13's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

kerri1207's review against another edition

2.0

I listened to all 6 books, including the 3 Bill Hodges and If it Bleeds. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 5 but Holly is a different story (pun intended).

Let’s start with the narrator change, Will Patton did an excellent job with Holly’s character- the voice influxes emphasized her unique personality. In this book, Justine Lupe read Holly’s part completely different and with the way her character acted in this book, it took away from the “Holly appeal”. Holly smoking was not only mentioned, but repeatedly detailed. Again, away from the characteristics that we had come to know of her.
I get the story took place during the pandemic, but it was so over the top talking about Covid, masking, and vaccinations. In my experiences, I was never once asked if I’ve been vaccinated (or double/ quadruple boosted) but in the story this was common even among those first meeting each other.
Trump was also mentioned many times - the book seemed to be a political statement from SK more than anything. It made the book unnecessarily longer without saying anything new.
Barbara and the poetry was so detailed and boring.
I enjoyed the evil senior citizens Emily and Rodney Harris and was glad they got what was coming to them, but it crossed my mind that if they would kill/eat Holly it would be fine with me because I am done with this series.
Two stars is probably generous.

tnh1313's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jndec's review against another edition

3.5

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

jrobison's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Loved the characters from Finders Keepers! It's not really a mystery novel because you know what's going on very early on. I think that kills a lot of tension, but the race against time keeps it going. But even that fizzles out briefly before the story took another turn. I guess the characters kept me invested is my main point. Also, King does not write realistic dialogue for young characters lol.