LTJ's Reviews > Holly

“Holly” by Stephen King is a book I’ve been waiting a very long time to finally read. You see, before “Holly” was officially published on 9/5/23, I went on a Holly-inspired reading marathon so I could jump in and be fully caught up. I’m talking about taking an entire week off of work to enjoy a BOOKcation with everything involving Holly. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I devoured four novels and an entire short story collection written by King that featured Holly and it was such a rewarding reading experience.

Just so you know, to get the most out of “Holly” I highly recommend that you read all five books she is in before reading this novel. The order to read them are…

Mr. Mercedes -> Finders Keepers -> End of Watch -> The Outsider -> If It Bleeds -> Holly

Now before I jump into my review of this novel, here’s a list of the trigger warnings I found while reading…

- Homophobic comments
- COVID-19 pandemic
- Cannibalism
- Politics
- Racism
- Sexual harassment
- Rape
- Abortion
- Cancer
- Alzheimer’s Disease
- School shootings

If any of these trigger you, please don’t read this novel. One more thing I’d like to mention is my thoughts on how tons of readers hated the heavy use of politics, COVID-19, masking, vaxxing, and all that jazz in this novel to the point of being rude and mean to each other due to differences of opinion.

As always, reading is subjective and everyone reads for different reasons. Some like the escapism of novels and want to stay away from anything involving world and political events. Others don’t care at all and welcome it for whatever reason. Some will DNF a novel the moment they see things like that because they completely disagree and get all worked up. Others will enjoy it because they agree with that side of the debate.

Whatever the case may be, do whatever makes you happy as long as it’s not at the expense of treating others badly. It’s important to remember that if readers completely disagree with King’s views on politics, masking, vaxxing, etc., it’s okay to stop reading and move on to something else. Just please don’t start attacking your fellow Constant Readers because they agree with him on these kinds of topics or vice versa. We’re all readers at heart with different genres and topics we enjoy so no need to attack or be rude to each other over political differences or how people ultimately feel about COVID, masking, vaccinations, etc.

In my opinion, King is 75 years old and will be 76 years old on 9/21/23. The fact that he is still writing novels at such a high level is nothing short of incredible. I’m just glad he is because he will forever be my all-time favorite author. Regardless of how you feel about his own political views and opinions on COVID, masking, vaccinations, etc., if you are a horror reader at one point or other in your life he probably gave you at least one character or book you enjoyed based on something he wrote. He’s been writing for over 50 years now and is still going strong.

These trigger warnings I mentioned above don’t bother me at all since they’re just words on paper to me. Remember my friends, be kind to each other, no matter where you stand on these political and COVID topics. Whether you agree or disagree, just treat each other with kindness. Trust me, it truly goes a very long way in life.

Anywho, I loved this novel so much, and depending on how the rest of this year goes, “Holly” might very well end up being my favorite book of 2023. It was that extraordinary to me and just like the other novels featuring Holly, King did a wonderful job weaving a story within a story within a story with tons of little subtle references here and there.

Everything from The Princess Bride, Blood Red Sky (I loved this movie on Netflix), Freddy Krueger, Carrie (lost my mind when he did this), and even The Haunting of Hill House all made me smile. I love it when King does things like this, especially with his own legendary work.

The intro to “Holly” was a wild one and my goodness, King dialed up the horror with a very gross twist to things in this one. I made lots of weird faces with those insanely descriptive situations. In general, I was so happy to see Holly get her own novel and not only see what she’s been up to lately but also how she has evolved in the grand scheme of things.

To finally get more of Holly’s backstory and fill in the gaps to what makes her tick was such a great thing to read. I have connected with Holly way before this novel came out and reading this solidified to me that she’s a rockstar. I just love the kind of person she is, how vulnerable she can be depending on what is going on at the moment, and just how she figures things out over time.

Seeing Holly continuing to be Holly as she pieced things together in this horror mystery novel was a lot of fun. The suspense is all throughout this novel and besides Holly, I also enjoyed how King was able to include Jerome and his sister Barbara to also get updates on them which was nice to read. This is a big reason why I highly recommend reading those five novels I mentioned above since it’ll just make it more meaningful.

Besides this incredible unique and disturbing story, King did a phenomenal job breaking down an underlying tone to “Holly” that was evident all throughout this novel. Seeing Holly process grief due to what she’s going through was engrossing. Everyone handles grief differently but to see such a complex and riveting character as Holly goes through this on top of trying to figure out what she’s investigating was nothing short of brilliance.

It goes to show that no matter how strong, weird, or complicated someone is on the outside, grief like that affects everyone to some degree even as they vehemently deny it on the inside. Don’t worry, I won’t ruin anything for you but I just loved seeing Holly turn into the person she is now. Not only am I impressed but well, proud. I know that’ll sound weird but I literally went through a five-novel journey reading them all in a single week and feel like I know Holly. Even King said in recent interviews promoting this novel that there is a bit of Holly in him and well, everyone. I also feel the same as I’ve seen some of my tendencies of handling things as Holly would which makes her so relatable to me.

Another thing I loved is how the presence of Bill Hodges so many moons ago impacted Holly so much that it is still helping her in the present. I swear, the quote that King put to open up this novel (“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” - Bill Hodges) just hits you from beginning to end. Speaking of which, my goodness, the climax to the ending was fantastic! The main antagonists in this one were pure evil and I loved how Holly handled everything in stride towards that stupendous ending.

I was on the edge of my seat getting through that ending because I didn’t think that would ever happen and to see Holly do what she did totally made me scream YES!!! so many times in my head because it was so epic. It was quite the buildup and everything ended perfectly. I loved the ending, actually. Mainly because it ended the way it should have when it comes to Holly and the kind of character she has now become. As always with anything I read by King, I was left mesmerized as Holly is now one of my all-time favorite characters he’s ever created.

I give “Holly” by Stephen King a 5/5 as it was so worth reading all five novels Holly was in before this one was published to enjoy watching her evolve into the person she is now. The horror, creepiness, and disturbing aspects of this novel were bloody magnificent. It probably isn’t a good idea to eat or drink anything while reading this one but at the end of it all, Holly rocks. I’m so glad King decided to give this influential character her own novel because this has been quite the reading journey I will never forget for the rest of my life. Finally, the last little thing King left me with besides all this awesomeness involving Holly is that I will never look at vanilla ice cream the same again. Ever.