Review: House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
House of Hollow
by Krystal Sutherland
Thank you Penguin Teen for this copy.
Publisher: Penguin Teen
Publish Date: April 6, 2021
Kindle Edition
352 Pages
Standalone
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal
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.
My Review:
A story as enticing and beautiful as its cover. YOU WANT TO READ THIS BOOK. This belongs in its own genre - it encompasses fantasy, horror, paranormal, magical realism, paganism? Maybe? I don't even know how to classify it. What I DO know, is that this is the PERFECT read for a reader like me.
Remember that scene in The Ruins where you see the wiggle underneath her skin as the plant underneath moves across her forehead? Where you want to look away, BUT YOU JUST CANNOT? This. This is this book. Grey, Vivi and Iris, the Hollow girls, disappeared on their parents watch. Gone in a blip and not a single sighting until they showed up on the street a month later. Their father making claims that these are not his daughters. Their mother who clings to the youngest as the older two left home in their teens. The oldest, Grey, disappearing.... AGAIN. Of course they're going to go searching for her. All while being chased by a man who smells of death and looks like a minotaur. YES PLEASE. MORE MORE MORE!
I didn't expect this read to get as dark as it did. Those who may look away due to the fact it's also in a Young Adult category, fear not - this gets creepily delicious and you'll want to stay and eat up every bloody morsel.. surely to be dotted by carrion flowers. I got sucked in from the very beginning and absolutely did not want to put this down. I expected a family story and while it does touch on family, death, letting go AND the basic need of survival, it is SO much more.
Come come come, dear readers. Let's go journey where the Hollow sisters have gone. I promise to bring you back... maybe even in one whole piece. 😈
★★★★★
Jessica's Review:
This book! I can honestly say that I had no idea what to expect when picking it up and I was so happy to get a story just as beautiful and alluring as the cover is. HOUSE OF HOLLOW seems to be in a genre all its own - part mystery, part fantasy, atmospheric, much darker than I anticipated, and please don't shy away if you don't typically go for the YA genres. At just under 300 pages I flew through it and was engrossed from start to finish. Who are the Hollow sisters? What happened to them a decade ago?
Grey, Vivi, and Iris are the mysterious Hollow sisters with the half-moon scars under their throats. They seem to be just as strange as the circumstances surrounding their disappearances as children. Missing for a month and then they reappear on the same street they disappeared from and in perfect health but with no memory of what happened. Where were they? What happened to them? Why are their eyes and hair different colors now? What secrets are they keeping? Now, a decade later, Grey is a famous supermodel and designer, Vivi is a successful musician in a rock band, and Iris is just trying to live a normal life and finish high school. Her sisters seemed to embrace the weirdness and reputation they have created because of who they are, but Iris wants it all forgotten.
Her sisters are both going to be in town for Vivi's newest gig, but Grey never shows up. They quickly discover that she's missing and must follow a weird trail of clues left behind. Will they find her? Is she dead? So many questions that we need answers to! I loved the journey this brought Iris and Vivi on and we slowly start to learn more about what happened to them as children. I think the author did an incredible job bringing these girls all to life - each Hollow unique and with her own voice. I can't think of another book quite like this one, and with all the thrillers and mysteries seemingly following the same mold lately, that was a breath of fresh air. and I highly recommend adding this to your spring TBRs.
5 stars
House of Hollow was such an amazing book and so hard to put down. I loved the plot twist and I need to know what happens next. I hope that there is a second book.
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