Never Flinch

IN A NUTSHELL
'Never Flinch' is a thriller with the menace of a horror novel. It's an immersive, character-driven story that mines the divisive hate and misogyny pulsing through contemporary American politics. It pitches the idea that it's not enough to stand up for what is good if we blind ourselves to the existence of evil. Evil needs to be seen to be defeated. The plot swept me along. I was engaged with the people. Even so, it lacked the tight integration of theme, plot and character that Stephen King achieves when he's at his best.

I immersed myself effortlessly in the audiobook version of 'Never Flinch' for three days, happily giving myself up to the story. I opened the audiobook version ‘Never Flinch‘ when it arrived in my show more Audible library its publication day. intendingto sample the narration and move on. Instead, I set my reading plans aside and spent the three days compulsively reading the book.

It's a thriller with a complex plot. It started with a serial killer on a bizarre revenge mission, a feminist political activist on a speaking tour who has a potentially violent stalker, and a revered retired)rock and soul singer who was making a comeback. I knew that somehow Stephen King was going to bring them all together in a way that put everyone, especially Holly and those she cares about, at risk.

The plot had a very contemporary feel, hooking into the politics of hate that has overtaken America and showing how it has changed public discourse. Stephen King uses the character of Kate McKay to give a face and a voice to one side of that discourse. I liked that although Kate's speeches are powerful attacks on misogyny and the patriarchy, and her on-stage performance is charismatic, she's also quite difficult to like. It seemed to me that Stephen King took the dynamic between the comedian and the scriptwriter in 'Hacks' and made it harsher and darker. So dark that Holly Gibney allows herself to be hired as Kate McKay's bodyguard. Stephen King wasn't pitching a 'there are good people on both sides' argument. As an alternative to McKay, he offers people who range from the misguidely beligerant to the fanatically intolerant. He places one of the Christian fundamentalist megachurches at the violent end of that spectrum.

I always admire Stephen King's ability to conjure up credible, deeply disturbing evil. This time, he had not one but two evil people, working independently of each other, but both on a collision course with Holly and her people. This produces a lot of forboding and some very tense action scenes.

The thing that I admired most about this book was how Stephen King created small moments of pure joy for his characters. True, those moments occurred in the deepening shadow of a growing threat, but they still captured the feelings that make life worth fighting for. This ability to nurture joy in the shadow of evil provides the hope that kept me engaged with the plot and the characters.

I recommend the audiobook version of 'Never Flinch'. It's almost fifteen hours long which, before I started it, put me off a little. Once I started to listen, I was immediately swept along. My only challenge became how to find more time in the day to listen to the book. Part of the credit for that momentum belongs to Jesse Mueller’s narration. She gave each character a voice I could believe in AND managed the singing parts, all while keeping a perfect pace. Click on the Youtube link to hear a sample of her narration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLVZbBgYfOY show less

Stephen King's latest novel, NEVER FLINCH, is the fourth book featuring Holly Gibney, a main character I both like and enjoy following. In great excitement, I preordered the audiobook, my favorite method of experiencing Mr. King's novels, and finally got down to listening to it. Only to discover that NEVER FLINCH is not one of Mr. King's strongest stories.

Holly Gibney has demonstrated tremendous growth over the first three books, excluding her role in Mr. King's Mr. Mercedes series. She has emerged from her timid and rigid shell to become a strong, decisive, fair, and competent character. For the most part, in NEVER FLINCH, Holly continues to exhibit those traits as she works to protect her client and solve a serial killer's murder show more spree in her spare time, until she doesn't. The switch from capable and decisive Holly to indecisive and fearful Holly is as abrupt as it is disconcerting. The whole shift is so out of character for Holly, especially the Holly as we now know her to be.

Holly's regression is particularly irksome because half of the plot surrounds women's rights. And, for most of the novel, she is a powerful woman in her own right. As a hired security guard for a feminist, it is as if Mr. King is emphasizing that Holly has grown into her role as a private investigator, business owner, and friend, and that she is no longer meek but wily, highly observant, and unafraid to act on intuition. Holly blends well with Kate McKay's bombastic nature, providing some much-needed calm against Kate's storm. Together, they are the perfect example of why women continue to fight for equal rights and against the patriarchy. Yet, Mr. King undoes that powerful portrayal in one short scene.

The issue here is that Mr. King did not need to betray Holly that way. I recognize that in this one scene, Holly's indecision becomes a crucial moment of suspense, akin to a bomb ticking down while someone waffles over which color of wire to cut. However, the scene does not need any more tension. The other threads of the story are also ratcheting up in suspense, building the necessary crescendo before the final confrontation between hero and villain. We don't need Holly to waffle; it doesn't add anything to the story. Instead, this one scene subtracts so much from who Holly has become.

Mr. King's novels always have multiple story threads, and he usually excels at coalescing them into one coherent finale. In NEVER FLINCH, the multiple stories don't quite work together. The build-up to the big fire versus police charity softball game is more distracting than anything. The Sista Bessie storyline is also a bit unnecessary. Don't get me wrong. Sista Bessie is a GREAT character, and I loved her scenes. But they didn't provide much other than a fun side story.

While NEVER FLINCH is one of Mr. King's more mediocre stories, I have to say the audiobook production is outstanding. As the narrator, Jessie Mueller provides a remarkable performance. She not only manages to embody prissy Holly, free-spirited Barb and Jerome, and blustery Kate, but she is glorious as Sista Bessie. Her singing is simply gorgeous. By the end of the novel, I forgot that she was narrating and thought that Sista Bessie was a real person. If ever there was an audiobook production you must experience, it is this one.

NEVER FLINCH is both a disappointment and a delight. I remain frustrated with how Mr. King showed Holly at the end of the story because I like her growth. It is why I keep coming back to the series. Holly has always been somewhat of an underdog, and this was the first novel where I felt that she was a reckoning force. To kick her back to where she started so suddenly like that is doing Holly a major injustice, and it was just too abrupt and unnecessary for me to be able to overlook it. Combine that with the side stories that were good entertainment but made a long novel feel even longer, and there are the disappointments. However, I enjoyed Jessie Mueller as Sista Bessie so much that I can only delight in her performance and relisten to those singing sections as often as possible! show less

So...yet another Holly Gibney novel.

Yay. Or, whatever.

With this, the sixth (and my god, I hope final) appearance of Holly Gibney in a Stephen King story, I can officially say I'm really, truly, sick and tired of this character and her world. Yeah, yeah, I know. Shut up, Mr. Crankypants.

She was interesting in MR. MERCEDES. I'll give you that. But each subsequent appearance dimmed my like for her just a little more. And HOLLY seemed to removed anything that was fun about her. I will say, this novel seemed to bring back some of the quirks that had been tamped down, but still, it's not enough to save this book.

King's note at the end let's us know this book had a difficult birth, and I can see why. It's got a huge cast of characters, two show more full, novel-length stories going on at the same time that get coincidentally—but not very neatly—shoehorned together toward the end. King says his wife Tabitha read the first draft and her comment was, "You can do better."

She's not wrong, and I stand by her statement with this final draft. He can—and has—done much better. Hell, he's done better with Holly, specifically in the "If It Bleeds" novella.

Anyway, overall, this is an overly complicated story of one man turning into a serial killer and another LGBTQ character stalking someone for...reasons. Along the way, King has commentary on alcoholism, on addiction in the broader sense, on abortion rights, women's rights, religion, the Right and the Left, and the acceptance (or not) of non-cisgendered people...

...as well as those two many storylines.

To be honest, I'm shocked this isn't one of King's trademark 900-page, four pound doorstop novels, with all that going on, but thank god it's not, because he busts out some arguments too often already (the ex-alcoholic, soon-to-be-serial-killer who keeps ruminating on how he's getting addicted to killing). There's just...too much happening in this book and, unfortunately, very little of it is truly engaging.

A solid three-quarters of the way through this story, I remember thinking that this is, at best, one of those books that everyone reads because the author has become the hot topic on Tik Tok for a week, but their next book bombs because everyone that read this one realized it wasn't that good in the first place.

It's an average book from an author who never used to write average books, and that saddens me. The new King book used to be an event. It used to be a "first thing in the morning trip to the bookstore, then hide from everyone until the book is read" event.

But unfortunately, this one's got all the hallmarks of a 2020s King story...characters "beat feet" and wear "gimme caps" and spout sayings that are at least forty years out of date. They reference things like Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger, and music that was popular in the Sixties. And honestly? I wouldn't care anything about that, if King was setting his books in the Sixties or Seventies...but now? The only people who talk like that? Who use those expressions and callbacks?

They're characters in a King novel.

The only sections I truly enjoyed in this novel were the Barbara/Sista Bessie scenes, because—likely due to his Rock Bottom Remainders experiences—King brings the music and the stage antics alive. It's the one plotline in the book that I felt like King didn't have to think or plot, but just flow.

I wish the rest of the book had that flow.

Anyway, here's hoping King's scratched his mystery/Holly itch enough (as well as his fantasy itch) and gives us a story that makes us flinch.

Because, like the title, with this one I never flinched, but I did wince on more than one occasion. show less

👏👏👏 I absolutely loved this one! A relevant and impactful story beautifully woven with a suspenseful thriller. This is only my 6th read by King and I am always blown away by how amazing his writing is. Each novel is packed with details but in a way that I don’t find boring. It always adds to the story for me and makes for a great ending every time. I don’t know how to word my thoughts right now, but I especially loved Never Flinch because it takes place in today’s world and touches on a very intense and important topic: women’s rights: pro-choice. It made for a very political read, but in an enjoyable way with how thrilling the plot was. I feel like I learned a great deal about the topic through this book. Even though show more it wasn’t a main plot point, it still holds a significant spot throughtout the whole book becasue of one of the main characters.

Stepping away from said topic, I also really enjoy how horrific the writing was as well. Reading from the POV of the serial killer was quite unsettling, yet also intriguing. This lunatic killer was certainly a psychopath; and with that ending, I feel like there was something supernatural about it... Also, the fact that there are two crazies in here and we get both of there POVs 😵‍💫 As it turns out, I will definitely be reading King’s other books that have Gibney as a character, because I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Now, I just need to make sure I read them in the right order 😂 While I still feel like there’s so much more I want to say, I don’t want to ramble or spoil the story. Highly recommend show less

4/5
Two storylines entwine and tangle in an epic battle of beliefs based around love, friendship, justice, and women's rights.

I wish one day that we could read this book and wonder how any of this could happen. Stephen King spins two dark storylines together that are current: miscarriages of justice and a woman's right to her own body and choices. This book made me love King even more.

King shows authentic views of both sides, the people are human and they believe what they believe. Do they always do the right thing? No. But he doesn't spend the whole book vilifying or praising only one side. As for Trig, well that's an interesting spiral into some trauma and justice that make for a terrifying killer.

I truly loved and was impressed with show more King's weaving in this. Holly is separate for a little before stepping into one line and then jumping fully into the other. The way everything comes together is gripping and had me worried for SO LONG. He keeps the action going and I never found a section that sagged. Masterful work from the King.

I'm officially out of my reading slump. Thank you Stephen King! I'm so happy to have gotten this through my library! I'll happily add this to my Stephen King bookcase! show less

Holly Gibney has a lot on her plate: there’s a serial killer at work, someone that her friend Izzy is trying to flush out; a feminist speaker is on tour and requires Holly’s services as a bodyguard because, in addition to the usual pro-life crowd, there’s also a stalker after her; and legendary singer Sista Bessie is coming out of retirement to put on a string of shows, and she wants Holly’s friend Barbara to be a part of it. Not to mention the annual charity baseball game between the cops and the firemen, which always draws a crowd. And everything is coming to a head all at the same moment…. By now, I don’t imagine there’s a reader out there who doesn’t know about Stephen King and his work, and presumably one either show more likes his work or does not; there’s not a lot of “meh” around his books. I have been enjoying his work for many years, in fact used to buy his new book each June (which is when they reliably would come out; sometimes one in December too), read it and then give it to my late mother for her birthday (or for Christmas), and here he displays his usual tricks of the trade: relatable and succinctly drawn characters, ratcheting up of tension amid a sense of inevitability, and little details that anchor the story in real, contemporary American life. In addition, he’s got one of my favourite characters of his in Holly Gibney; it’s been a joy to see her grow and develop as a private investigator and a person, and I love the fact that she’s an unprepossessing middle-aged lady who almost might be anybody. As with everything these days, there are some parts of this book that will upset people for ideological reasons, but also as ever, Mr. King’s writing is compelling and a great ride; recommended! show less

Holly Gibney has a lot going on. She's informally helping out a detective friend with a serial killer case and she's been hired as a body guard for a feminist activist doing a speaking tour of the Midwest. Meanwhile, Jerome is struggling with his novel and Barbara is having the time of her life as she makes friends with a music legend who wants to turn one of Barbara's poems into a song.

This novel is where King moves the Finders Keepers crew away from horror and into the realm of the mystery series. And he knows all the rules of the genre and does a good job of keeping the tension high while never veering into horror or even allowing any of the main characters to be harmed. I'd say that this is a good book for those who want to read show more King but who don't like horror to jump in, but this book also has the long-standing relationships of a established series. Would the deep affection people hold for Holly Gibney make sense if you hadn't already read about what she had experienced previously?

King has some interesting and nuanced character studies in this book and he certainly knows how to pull off a big finish, but the plotting felt a little simpler than in the past. I figured out a clue immediately that had Holly and the police puzzled for far too long, and I never figure things out ahead of time. While I have liked this series far more than his usual work, I think that maybe King has grown to like his characters far too much to put them in harms way, which is to the detriment of this series. show less