Overall I really enjoyed the book and was pleasantly surprised by how easy King was to read. I was a little disappointed in the end and how similar it felt to IT (at least the movie version). Felt El Cuco went down too easily.

A really fun supernatural detective mystery.

A young boy is found brutally murdered, and all the evidence seems to point at one suspect. Hell, the case is air tight. A slam dunk. The guy is clearly 100% guilty. Except he also has concrete, air tight, slam dunk proof that he can't be the murderer.

Enter Holly Gibney, one of the most relatable protagonists in the history of detective stories, and one of the few people in the world who has seen enough weirdness to know that sometimes Conan Doyle's famous saying about eliminating the impossible doesn't apply, because the impossible is actually possible. But just not in the realm of natural things.

The Bill Hodges trilogy, and now the Holly Gibney books, are the first Stephen King books I've read since the Dark Tower series, and they have been a wonderful reminder of just why King is such a renowned author. The man can write, creating believable and human characters, conveying mood and tone, comfortable both with action and slower scenes. His books are just so comfortable to read and so easy to lose myself in, and The Outsider is no exception. The book jumps between various point of view characters, all of whom feel like real people, acting in believable and human ways. It's so nice to read mystery books where the characters don't intentionally act like the world's biggest dumbasses, because that's the only way the author can maintain tension.

I still think Holly (which I read first, not knowing it was actually book three of a second trilogy) is the best in the series, but The Outsider is also very enjoyable. It's a very well written detective story with supernatural elements, not quite crossing into the world of horror, but definitely dipping its toes in.

This was a solid book, but I was a bit let down by the ending.

There is something about King's writing that makes it very comforting. The way he presents the surroundings, and the characters feels like a bedtime story.
At times, I was worried the story would become cliché, but it skilfully combined its themes, avoiding any kitschiness. I hope Holly Gibney's presence in the Bill Hodges series did not spoil those books for me. It was a strange choice to bring a character from a different King book.
Time to watch the adaptation now.

Terrifying and awesome. This book started off horrific and ended the same way. If you like horror you will love this book.

Well, it's not Kings best work per se, but still pretty enjoyable if you're the patient type. Usually a 500 page book flies by for me, but this one FELT long.