Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤'s Reviews > Holly

Occasionally someone comments on reviews to let me know it would have been a great! review had I not included politics. They go on to inform me that politics has no place in fiction, and I ruined my review by inserting politics.

To those people: 
1. You mistake me for someone who cares that a complete stranger who has their head in the clouds doesn't like my review.

2. Have you never read Tolstoy, Hugo, Dickens, Dostoyevsky or other many, many classic writers? Dante with his Inferno full of politicians?

3. Don't bother with Stephen King's Holly because you'll get butt-hurt, especially if you're a trumper and anti-vaxxer. 

To everyone else, dive right in!

I didn't realize that Holly Gibney (Jibba Jibba) appeared in 5 previous novels. I no doubt missed some references, and didn't know who a couple mentioned characters were because of that. 

I still enjoyed it and don't think it is necessary to have read those other novels before this one. 

I'm ambivalent about Holly's character. She didn't make me feel anything. I should have, especially since she's a hypochondriac like me who wore latex gloves and N95 masks even after getting vaccinated (I only ceded those things this summer and still don an N95 at the doctor's).

I don't know what it was about Holly, she was a bit of a bore. She also annoyed me with her use of "fracking". Just say "fucking" already.

Remember Annie Wilkes in Misery with her dirty birdies and cockadoodies. That was some entertaining non-swearing Annie Wilkes delivered. Holly and her fracking though, that just made my eyes roll.

At one point she let loose with "fucking" and I had hope for her. It didn't last long.

I loved reading every other character's POV except hers. 

The story comes together through several characters. My favorites were young Barbara the aspiring poet and her mentor Olivia, and those geriatric, creepo professors emerti.

Those two were bonkers. Sadistic and crazy both. Talk about believing shit without proof... Old Professor Harris was a pro at that. 

I was simultaneously amused and appalled by them. I don't want to say too much and give anything away, though the truth about them is apparent early on. 

It's no secret Stephen King dislikes trump and he makes that clear in this novel as well. There's also quite a bit about Covid, mask-wearing, vaccinations, anti-vaxxers, BLM, police brutality, racism, and -is this really a thing?- elbow bumps.

To those who are turned off by this, King writes in the afterword, "I think fiction is most believable when it coexists with real-world events, real-world individuals". I agree. 

This is a fun read in spite of the seriousness. There's some gore. I don't think I'll ever want a strawberry parfait again.