house of hollow is a ya paranormal / urban fantasy that follows iris hollow, the youngest of three mysterious sisters. when the hollow sisters were younger, they vanished for a month that left each of them with a half-moon shaped scar on their throats but no memories of the experience. as a teenager, iris does her best to blend in & wishes she was normal, but her sister's disappearance sparks a series of events that forces her to confront their shared past & the mysterious oddness that surrounds all three sisters.
first of all, can we talk about how gorgeous the cover is!? i love the illustration style & the muted colour palette...okay, moving on. house of hollow is described as a dark fairytale, & i think the book really delivered on that feeling with its lyrical writing style & incorporation of the magical paranormal elements. also, the fantasy otherworld was so wonderfully intriguing and i would totally love to see more about how it operates. the main mystery of the book was also well-written, and it felt like there were so many twists and turns and we were always just scratching the surface, which made me keep on turning the page and guessing, although most of mine were wrong.
my favourite character was the eldest sister, grey hollow, who was always shrouded with a perpetual layer of mystery, but i didn't really connect with the main character. iris didn't feel like she was that developed, and felt a bit bland. actually, i also liked her other sister, vivi, and grey's boyfriend, tyler yang, more than iris herself. in addition, i didn't like the main romantic subplot and found it unnecessary. but probably the thing that i disliked the most was that the book decided to kill off tyler (the one token poc character) in a pretty pointless way. the death was handled pretty badly and wasn't all that impactful, and the same exact ending probably could have been achieved while also keeping him alive.
first of all, can we talk about how gorgeous the cover is!? i love the illustration style & the muted colour palette...okay, moving on. house of hollow is described as a dark fairytale, & i think the book really delivered on that feeling with its lyrical writing style & incorporation of the magical paranormal elements. also, the fantasy otherworld was so wonderfully intriguing and i would totally love to see more about how it operates. the main mystery of the book was also well-written, and it felt like there were so many twists and turns and we were always just scratching the surface, which made me keep on turning the page and guessing, although most of mine were wrong.
my favourite character was the eldest sister, grey hollow, who was always shrouded with a perpetual layer of mystery, but i didn't really connect with the main character. iris didn't feel like she was that developed, and felt a bit bland. actually, i also liked her other sister, vivi, and grey's boyfriend, tyler yang, more than iris herself. in addition, i didn't like the main romantic subplot and found it unnecessary. but probably the thing that i disliked the most was that the book decided to kill off tyler (the one token poc character) in a pretty pointless way. the death was handled pretty badly and wasn't all that impactful, and the same exact ending probably could have been achieved while also keeping him alive.