Reading Journal 2023: Holly

Reading Journal 2023: Holly
Author: Stephen King

Few authors are more automatic for me than King, which can be a bit exhausting given the sheer rate in which he writes and releases new material. Automatic buys though inevitably come with expectations. Expectations born from a history that proves even his weakest efforts are stronger than many of the authors writing today.

That doesn’t necessarily satisfy the disappointment though when one of books does fall short of those lofty expectations. Let me be clear- the writing here is good and perfectly in line with King’s sensibilities and style. As is common for me though, my affection for a given story tends to rise and fall with the characters, and unfortunately they fell flat for me here.

Holly is, of course, a familiar character, now given her full due within a story that dovetails off If it Bleeds and plays off the Bill Hodges storylines. She’s recognizable, with King playing off some of her key characteristics, in particular her OCD, in order to recast the setting of If it Bleeds withiin the reality of Covid. Just fyi, coming into this one I had noticed a segment of agitated an angry readers expressing their negative feelings about King’s latest effort. I was curious what was setting this off. Turns out its because, at least within the subtext, King uses Holly to set up one of the big bads in view- anti-vaxxers and Trump supporters. I would actually encourage readers angry about that element to read the authors note at the end. It might still make you angry, but at least you’ll have some context for why he made that choice. In truth, its not so much a thematic point of the book as it is a way of fleshing out Holly’s character. If he had truly wanted the book to be preaching his politics he coul have easily woven that into the fabric of the story in a more definitive way. Personally, and speaking as someone who is in neither of those camps, I think King’s earned the right to write whatever story he wants at this point.

What disappointed me is the way most of Holly’s character gets narrowed in on one singificant emotional concern- Hodge’s death. The poblem being that this ultimately proves to be little more than a plot point in the story King is really interested in- an elderly couple who are also killers. Without spoiling what kind of killers they are, suffice to say that these characters simply did not draw me into the story. I found them to be deeply uninteresting, even though King, as he also says in his authors note, spent a goo deal of time researching them for the story. It doesn’t help either that we essentially know the mystery from the start, and are left watching Holly play catch up. Part of the intrigue is clearly supposed to be the chase an the solving of the murders, which the lack of mystery does tend to hamper. i think what I needed was richer bonds between Holly and the supporting characters, or more development of the supporting characters.

I would never decry a choice to read King- any King, and Holly is an easy enough read that it shouldn’t demand too much. For those who have really enjoyed Holly in his other books its probably worth picking up just for that alone. But, even set alongside some of his most recent efforts, I would say this is one of his weaker ones.