Holly - Stephen King

[Mrs. Skeffington]

Originally Posted by beckerd2

Just got done reading this book. I thought it was ok...not really that great. I think it was because of what everyone has already said. I read to escape the crap in real life that is always on the news. That is why I read Fiction. King should not have kept up the background harping on masks, vacinnations, and covid. It distracted from the story for me.

There are a lot of good authors with good thriller/horror/supernatural story lines that blow this particular King book out of the ballpark.

Dean Koontz comes to mind in that category.

I just finished "Holly". I got it at the library, and it took a long time to be available. I liked the story, but hated the soapbox harping about covid. All the lectures about getting vaccinated, wearing masks, and Trump bashing was totally unnecessary and is going to date this book badly. How about all the "virtue signaling" with the vaccines? Holly goes around asking almost everyone she comes into contact with if they're vaccinated. Everyone's had it twice, and they throw in a plug for the pharmaceutical company. "Moderna, two times...Pfizer, twice...Johnson and Johnson". I wonder if King is getting paid for the advertising?

BTW, I am NOT vaxxed, don't intend to be, and have had Covid twice (I've had worse head colds), I have many friends and co-workers who refuse to be vaxxed because they honestly don't TRUST it. We're not all ignorant "Covid deniers" like the unvaccinated characters he depicts in the book.

[tmozer]

No. It is not going to date the book. 10 years from now all the things you apparently are uncomfortable about will be consider part of the history of the time. Holly recently lost her mother to covid. What would you expect?

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by tmozer

No. It is not going to date the book.

I think it will. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Stories that contain a great picture of their time are a good thing.

If you go back and read 'SALEM'S LOT or THE DEAD ZONE, both are very obviously books set in and about the 1970s. But for me, that adds to the appeal.

I'm not sure HOLLY will have the same affect. Time will tell. The difference in HOLLY is not that King was painting a portrait of the pandemic era, but that he was so hamfisted and preachy about it. It didn't add to the story. It distracted from it. It almost felt like literary product placement.