chrisdubie 's review for:

Never Flinch by Stephen King
4.0

actually fascinating to see the old bastard whiff like this. its not even that its terrible, because the plotting and the writing and even the villains are vintage King in a way that feels interesting. theres like, plot points and beats in this book that like, an editor should have caught (i.e. one of the villains is in a religious cult that abstain from all drugs, including, explicitly, advil and then like 30 pages after that is mentioned, the character takes an advil and its not like, a point, its just that they have a headache?)

I dunno, I enjoyed it because of how fast it read, and I particularly love Holly as a character but it just felt underbaked, almost rookie in some ways that were pretty wild to read. in any case, I hope King does like one or two more Holly Gibney books and I am politely begging him to stop making Barbara and Jerome so irritatingly perfect.