Review of Finders Keepers (Bill Hodges Trilogy, Book 2)

Author: Stephen King
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

​The middle books in trilogies are difficult, and this one certainly demonstrates that middle act tension and complication.  On the one hand, the story is interesting (but not as interesting as Mr. Mercedes), and a little bit predictable.  However, because it allows King to explore and discuss the topic of writing, creativity, the relationship between author and fan, and the like, it still works and moves.  It helps that I am simultaneously reading King’s writing guide cum memoir, On Writing.  You can easily see how he uses the central plot of Finders Keepers to tease out some of the material he includes in On Writing.  He also uses the plot as a neat way to echo some themes in Misery. 

On the other hand, a big weakness of this middle book is that the central characters of the first book are on the periphery.  If you loved those characters, it is tough to be separated from them, and their involvement in the main story feels a bit manufactured.  Also frustrating is that there are first small, and then more obvious, hints of what is to come in the third book, but the story of the second book has pretty much nothing to do with the story foreshadowed.

In the end, King’s gift for dialog and description, his sense of humor and the sly bits of autobiography in here (especially a certain high school English teacher), not forgetting some meta self-commentary on the author and his own past works, means the book still moves and thoroughly entertains.  But it feels a bit like filler or just a story that might not have a place in the larger story.  Still, the morsels in this book make me all the more anxious to see what book three holds.


Click the link to read Shana's Review of Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)