an Attempted Book Review - Never Flinch by (master of suspense?) Stephen King

As far as I remember, I never wrote a book review. Not for HIVE, not for anything else. At secondary school, I had to review books, but not on paper. The tests were taken vocally, for books from the category of literature. Since then, I do still read books from this category, but sometimes also outside it. Not much though; And mostly from the non-fiction genre. Although - in recent years - I seem to pick up fictional books again, more and more. Perhaps even reading a non-fictional and a fictional book at the same time. Well, not exactly at the same time, since I cannot multi-thread. I master the art of multitasking only 🙂 What about you? Can you multi-thread reading books?

As you may already noticed, my first ever written book review isn't following the more or less standard format used by many. As I figured out the other day when I tested AI to write a book review for me, the format I see on HIVE is quite similar to what AI presented me. This drove me towards trying to do it differently. You - the reader - will be the judge if my attempt makes sense or not, is useful or not, can be classified as a book review or not at all. Let's wait and see. Looking forward to what you think, therefore urge you to drop your thoughts - whatever they may be - into the comments section down below ⬇️

Enough Intro: Let's get to the Real Deal

A few days ago, I finished a recent book by Stephen King. Title: Never Flinch, published earlier this year. In my teenage years, I read quite a few books by his hand. Since then, never touched any. Instead, seen a few movies, as far as I believe, of which none of the titles come to mind at the time of writing this blog post.

Started the book kinda like 4 or 5 weeks ago. Although the book reads quickly, I progressed kinda like 20 pages per reading round. With days in between these sessions. Not necessarily because I didn't have the time, but because I felt the book was too much dialogue. Perhaps - also - I felt the book to be quite simple from a story point of view, from a style point of view, from a depth point of view and from - excuse me for the 'kinda' repetition - a dialogue point of view. It made me question a few times if I should simply move the book into my archive, either somewhere remote on my bookshelf, or even in one of the cardboard boxes I have in my storage room.

...and then

...last week I found myself reading as much as 100 pages per day! 😱

Somehow, the story got to me. It - for sure - drove me to turn the page even at the end of a new chapter. Not to put a bookmark in, but to read at least the first paragraph. And every time I did this, I devoured the next sub-chapter and yet another one and so on. In a few cases, even the entire main chapter. I think I had 4 such days, over a period of not more than 6 days. Four times, my work commitments the next day pushed me towards closing the book, turning off the lights, and catching some sleepy time with every time too few hours for a comfortable rise in the morning. Four mornings, I realised I should've closed the book a bit sooner than I actually did.

But does what I experienced result in me giving this book a high mark? While writing this blog, I still am not sure what I think about this and will conclude for you and myself.

Intermezzo...

Darn, the number of chapters and sub-chapters in this book. Pfff. Sometimes a sub-chapter was shorter than one page, in a few cases even two sub-chapters on a single page. Why? Why is this needed? I suppose it is easier for the reader to follow the structure.

The Story

I don't like to go into a summary of at least the intro and/or first part of the book, since this can be read anywhere on the Internet, or given by any AI in a much better way than I will ever be able to do. But I need to explain something to substantiate my earlier claim on the structure of the book.

The story is told from the viewpoint of at least 7 characters, of which 3 are the main ones.

Two of them are the so-called bad individuals, and the other 5 belong to the good side. A serial killer in the making and a crazy pro-lifer. Both co-leaders. A detective 'Holly' (with the master leading role), a police officer and a close friend of Holly, a poet and a close friend of Holly as well. A bystander and friend who got himself involved because he is getting bored writing his own non-fictional novel. And a famous Jazz singer.

morrrrre Thoughts

Slowly, I came to the realisation that Holly wasn't a new character. She starred in earlier works of master King. Still, am not sure if Stephen is a master in my own view, but he is considered a - or perhaps 'the' - master of suspense. I suppose one of the reasons why I read quite a few books by his mind and hands back in the 80s and early 90s.

Helped by the big, wide Internet, I learned my hunch was and is correct. Holly has been presented to the world in earlier works. Seven of them in total, thus far. She saw daylight back in 2014. Since then, she appeared - likely in the leading role - in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2023 and in the book I read and talk about here, in 2025.

Is Stephen out of ideas for new material, new characters? Is he riding the commercial waves? Milking the system? Is the use of the same character(s) in such a short period of time the reason for my initial thoughts and feelings? To ditch the book for something better? The fact, Holly was used so many times isn't helping to regard his work highly. At least, not in my 'book'. But then again, I raced through the last 400 pages, almost faster than any transport vehicle in existence, including the rockets 'we' shoot to our moon and Mars 😱

I was a little - more than that, in fact - astonished when I read the works of Stephen to be regarded as literature. Perhaps more like popular literature, but still, literature. His writing style feels a bit too shallow for this, too simple, too ... well ... I mentioned already before, too much dialogue. Overall, I found the story a bit too predictable.

Salient detail: the AI I asked to write a review for me (link down below) was for this book. The result I got said almost the opposite. It wrote the story has great suspense moments with sudden shifts and feels remarkably unpredictable. Perhaps AI was remotely correct, but not more than remotely. I can not conclude it was unpredictable to me. That said, I devoured 100 pages per reading session, finishing the book in 4 of those, over a period of just 6 days, while I didn't necessarily have the time for such sessions.

What made me do this?

I do not know. Finally, he got my attention, and I wasn't able to break free.

Kudos for Stephen, that's for sure, BIG ASS KUDOS.

Resources

Stephen King website

Never Flinch on Stephen King website

My AI ask/response: AI review - Useless for my Blog Post but interesting nonetheless

an original