Savvy's Reviews
Not sure you want to dig into that new book? Let Savvy do the hard work for you! Here's her latest review!
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.
Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind.
As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.
The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years. - GoodReads.com
The best way to describe this book would have to be a slow burning fire that infects the brain and keeps you hooked long after you put it down. This is an urban Grimm fairy tale set inside a nightmare.
“My sisters. My blood. My skin. What a gruesome bond we shared.”
If you’ve read my reviews before you’ll know that I, of course, love horror but hate the slow burn thriller. Think of something like Haunting of Hill House or Haunting of Bly Manor… you’re terrified you’re going to see something horrific the whole time but eventually you start to let your guard down. Just when you do… Here comes the jump scare.
For me this book was less about jump scares and more about grisly imagery. The girls themselves have literal flowers that will sprout out of any cut or bleed in their skin… It sounds beautiful and really fits in with my horror aesthetic but it’s not exactly a comfy thought.
“I am the thing in the dark.”
What I loved about this book was how empowered each of the sisters were, especially Grey, the oldest sister, who has made the best of the circumstances at hand. I also loved the intense bond of sisterhood. That sort of twin telepathy that you have with someone you love where you always know when something is wrong even if you’re not together.
I did have to put this book down right towards the end and come back to it because I seriously just didn’t see where the end could possibly be going… But that’s that jump scare we talked about. As soon as I picked it back up the twist began. It kind of wrapped up like “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart except I know I actually did like this book. (I still have mixed feelings about WWL…)
So I’ll tell you this: If you read this book… be committed to seeing it through to the end because it will all make sense and it will all be worth it. I really did enjoy reading this book even if I had to revisit it later.
For fans of “Here There Are Monsters” by Amelinda Berube and “Bone Gap” by Laura Ruby.
No comments:
Post a Comment