house of hollow, by krystal sutherland

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house of hollow – the review

i read house of hollow on a whim. i’ve wanted to read it for a while, but i didn’t plan on picking it up when i did. and my god, i’m glad i did. house of hollow is such a haunting and dark read. it was amazing.

the good

my favourite thing about house of hollow is, obviously, that it’s so creepy. i loved the use of the flowers and soil coming from inside the characters. i felt disgusted every time they “plucked” a flower out of a wound. it was gross. but i loved it.

so i’ve read only one book by krystal sutherland previously. a semi definitive list of worst nightmares. this book is so different from it, you can’t even compare them on the same scale. the only comparable aspect is the length. both books are fairly short, and i think that’s what makes them so easy to read. (massive books feel like a chore sometimes).

i thoroughly enjoyed the way that hardly anyone was straight, and it wasn’t made into a plot point, it was just there.

as for the characters, i felt iris and vivi were on the same sort of wave length. they were both well developed and likeable. grey, on the other hand, was way more mysterious. she’s obviously done some bad shit, but she does it with good intentions. i do like a good morally grey character. (can we call this a pun?)

as for the parents, i really felt for them. both were portrayed with different mental struggles, although i’m not so sure gabe actually had anything wrong with his mind. gabe was portrayed as the father who went mad after his children disappeared and reappeared (understandably so). his madness is down to the fact that he knew something wasn’t right with his kids. (i always feel bad for children who have parents who won’t accept them, or think there’s something wrong with them).

on the opposite side of the mental health spectrum is cate, the mum. i felt so bad for her, she loses her entire family but still holds it together. she may seem overbearing at times, but she clearly doesn’t want anything else to happen to her family. i like how she knows something’s not right, but she still does everything she can to hold it together.

the bad

nothing. what can i say, it was a good book.

overall

idk if i need an overall statement for this book. just go read it. i do suggest you check out the content warnings for this book as it mentions some heavy stuff. other than that, it’s a fairly short read, so it’s not a mission to finish.

star rating

★★★★★

purchase links

whitcoulls | paper plus | mighty ape