In Gwendy’s Final Task, the newest—and last (according to the authors’ afterward)—installment in the Gwendy series, reading about the latest adventures of Gwendy Peterson feels like revisiting an old friend. Readers have had the benefit of getting to know Gwendy over the course of three novels as she has grown from a child to an adult to an older woman, and it’s a testament to the series’ writing that her character feels consistent and manages to have added depth with each subsequent volume.
In Final Task, the now sixty-four-year-old Gwendy is once again tasked with protecting the button box first entrusted to her by the enigmatic (and seemingly ageless) Richard Farris when she was twelve. Although Gwendy is reluctant—and with good reason, since the box tempts its possessor with the great power to destroy—she faces the task with bravery, determination, and the desire to do what’s best for her world…and all worlds. After all, to quote another memorable King character, there are other worlds than these.
Whether in her childhood school days in Gwendy’s Button Box or political stardom in Gwendy’s Magic Feather, Gwendy’s story has always managed to reflect current events. The same is true here (despite just a few too many mentions of a certain former president) as Gwendy’s latest responsibility leads her to the M-F space station. It’s an interesting setting and allows Gwendy to be much more introspective than we’ve seen her before. There are some new characters this time around, as well as some returning ones who are fun to revisit, but it’s clearly Gwendy’s story, and co-authors Stephen King and Richard Chizmar smartly focus on her character development and arc. Along with King and Chizmar’s blended voices and crisp prose, the result is a propulsive, readable story that feels incredibly intimate and honest. A flashback in which a young Gwendy and her mother discuss their beliefs regarding heaven and the afterlife while looking up at the stars is one of the book’s best—honest, beautiful, and touching.
If readers glance at the book’s beautiful cover and surmise that Gwendy’s Final Task might feature a few Dark Tower Easter eggs, they’d be right. It’s genuinely fun to discover both the overt and subtle links to Stephen King’s magnum opus (no spoilers here) and they, along with references to the towns and histories of fictional Maine locales like Derry and Castle Rock feel organic rather than shoehorned into the story. If anything, it would have been welcome if Final Task had been even longer (it’s over 400 pages, but the print and line spacing are fairly large) in order to more fully develop those connections as well as the story’s particularly nasty villain.
Overall, Gwendy’s Final Task is great fun with a satisfying (and genuinely surprising) ending that rings true for the story and Gwendy’s character as a whole. But perhaps most of all, its message of love, positivity, and doing the right thing even when it’s hard is one that’s easy to rally behind, and just the kind of story we need right now.
—Ricky Ruszin, author of Showtime and writer for Collider.com