13 March 2022
Gwendy's Final Task picks up on the life of Gwendy Peterson, now in her 60s. This is the third appearance of the button box that impacted Gwendy's life in the series of King/Chizmar stories - following Gwendy's Button Box from 2017 and Magic Feather from 2019 (written only by Chizmar) - and this is the longest story of the 3. In this book Gwendy looks to finally end her proprietorship of the box, while dealing with the fallout surrounding it.
This book had several Stephen King callbacks to It, Castle Rock, and the Dark Tower, and more heavy handed than in the last two stories. Similarly the timeframe is in the near future (2026), so there's a bit of pandemic backdrop there as well. There are also some leanings into politics and health care commentary that others may find uncomfortable. In particular, Gwendy starts having early symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease, which could be a sensitive topic for some readers.
All that said, I generally liked the book, and felt it carried on at a decent pace. These books have typically been light reads that I can get through in a day or two. I probably like this one a bit more than I should because it provides some reasonable closure to the trilogy, and some additional worldbuilding that I enjoy. The first book definitely remains the best of the three, but these are nice extensions if you want to continue following the main character's life after the first book. 4/5