Reviewed December 30, 2025

Holly

by Stephen King (USA) · 2023

Darkness🕯️🕯️2 / 5
Quality⭐⭐2 / 5
thrillerdetective

If you had access to a superfood, one that could keep you feeling young and spry, well, why wouldn't you eat it?

Holly takes a missing persons case while grieving the loss of her mother. The trail leads to an elderly couple, who live nearby the crime scene. Holly must find out exactly how they connect to the crime.

And then it becomes clear that this crime is not the only one of its kind.

The Vibe

You have to start taking care of yourself when you're forty. You have to maintain the machinery, because there's no trade-in option.

Despite the premise being nauseating, this book is a 2 candler. It reads like a slow detective novel, with occasional visceral descriptions of meals.

The plot quickly becomes clear, but it takes a while to get there. While the thread that runs through the case is fun to unravel, Holly's headspace is not compelling enough to ensure a fun read throughout. There's also an obsession with COVID tangents that turn into a distraction. We get it, but it dates the book and it didn't need to be hammered so hard.

The villains are great, and genuinely creepy, but the book fails to utilize them fully.

It's a 2 star.

The Verdict

Read it if you want an satisfying unraveling of crimes committed by interesting, creepy villains and like Stephen King. Skip it if you want a story that fully utilizes those villains.

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