Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Hollow Places

I think I prefer her romance novels. The writing style is fun, conversational and approachable, but stretches a little thin sometimes. Sometimes a humorous aside is just distracting from the stuff that's really interesting.

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samanyana's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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avisham's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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wardenred's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Come on, let’s go back to the coffee shop and I’ll make us Irish coffees and we’ll discuss this like people who don’t die in the first five minutes of a horror movie.

All books that, to whatever extent, comply with the traditional Western three-act structure have this part. The beginning of Act I. The introduction. The part before the real adventure starts. It serves to present just enough information about the setting and the overall situation, to introduce the reader to the protagonist, and to hook the reader into the story; to get them invested into the things to come. Some stories, while having overall strong beginnings, don't exactly nail the "hook" part. Maybe they start too early. Maybe they don't put all the focus in the right place. Regardless, it may so happen that by the time the real plot starts unfolding, some readers are already invested in "the world before."

I feel that The Hollow Places is one such story. In all fairness, the stars I'm giving this book mostly come from the first 3-4 chapters. The ones where the characters got introduced, and Carrot kept allowing herself to get distracted from the divorce aftermath by reading fanfic and drinking coffee, and she and Simon were the ultimate dry witty comedic duo exploring that one weird corridor. The ones where the stakes were more personal and everything was full of that special warmhearted quirkiness T. Kingfisher does so well.

And then Carrot and Simon landed in what one of the reviewers called Narnia from Hell and the horror started in earnest. And hey, I picked up this book for the horror! I loved The Twisted Ones, the author's previous horror novel, and I expected to love The Hollow Places just as much. But, unfortunately, I didn't. Oh, the horror is good, make no mistake! It's vivid and visceral, and I love how Kingfisher describes the way her characters interact with horror, the way it slips inside and changes them. The Narnia from Hell was quite the experience. But I kept thinking back to those early 4 chapters and I couldn't help but feel disappointed that, while the story I was actually reading was good, I wasn't getting to read that story I felt I was promised by those chapters. The quirky, weird, more personal one, with potential for more magical realism than horror. So it was kind of... hard to enjoy the story that I was getting and made me focus less on what was going on and more on the moments that reminded me of the promise of the early chapters.

It's a good book, regardless. But maybe the beginning was a little too good? Idk.

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