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johnlynchbooks's review
2.0
Hollow Heart, by Ben Eads instantly grabbed me with it’s beautiful cover. I knew nothing of the author, and while you can say don’t judge a book by its cover, I do. So it’s got a rad cover, but are the contents any good?
Hollow Heart follows Harold, a physically and emotionally broken and battered Marine. He’s a paraplegic and suffers from severe PTSD. Harold must save what’s left of Shady Hills from The Architect before he finishes building his god.
For me, I found the plot itself fascinating, and was deeply intrigued by The Architect and what he was creating. His garden was terrifying and some of the creatures descriptions here were also frightening. That’s what worked for me, there was quite a bit that didn’t.
First off, this may not bother some people, and others may not have noticed this but as a Marine, I literally put the book down and just stopped reading for a bit when Harold called his fellow Marines “soldiers”. It wouldn’t happen, for the simple fact that Marines aren’t soldiers. Marine is a title you earn, hence why it’s capitalized. Secondly, seeing that the main character is a combat veteran Marine, it was off putting to me to see multiple times a character pick up an AR-15 and pull the “slide” back to chamber a round. AR-15’s don’t have slides they have charging handles. Again, I understand everyone’s not a weapon expert, but if the main character of your story is, a simple google search of nomenclature would have prevented that.
Another issue that I had was the dialogue. Much of the dialogue here feels forced and cringeworthy. It didn’t feel like natural dialogue. All of the characters have pretty bad dialogue but I think the worst for me was Terrell, many times his dialogue quite literally felt like a white man trying to write dialogue for a black man and it just came off sounding like a bad stereotype, like when you see the tweets of men writing bad dialogue for female characters. Not quite as bad as that, but you get the point.
Another thing that bugged me was I feel like this book should have been longer. I know it’s a novella but the characters didn’t feel fleshed out, they seemed to just make rash decisions out of nowhere, things just happen suddenly and characters are quickly ushered from one scenario to the next. It felt like someone walking me through a haunted house rather than me experiencing it on my own.
When it was all said and done, I finished Hollow Heart because for all of my complaints, and despite the execution not hitting the mark, I still found the plot interesting enough to want to find out how it ends.
2/5 stars
Hollow Heart follows Harold, a physically and emotionally broken and battered Marine. He’s a paraplegic and suffers from severe PTSD. Harold must save what’s left of Shady Hills from The Architect before he finishes building his god.
For me, I found the plot itself fascinating, and was deeply intrigued by The Architect and what he was creating. His garden was terrifying and some of the creatures descriptions here were also frightening. That’s what worked for me, there was quite a bit that didn’t.
First off, this may not bother some people, and others may not have noticed this but as a Marine, I literally put the book down and just stopped reading for a bit when Harold called his fellow Marines “soldiers”. It wouldn’t happen, for the simple fact that Marines aren’t soldiers. Marine is a title you earn, hence why it’s capitalized. Secondly, seeing that the main character is a combat veteran Marine, it was off putting to me to see multiple times a character pick up an AR-15 and pull the “slide” back to chamber a round. AR-15’s don’t have slides they have charging handles. Again, I understand everyone’s not a weapon expert, but if the main character of your story is, a simple google search of nomenclature would have prevented that.
Another issue that I had was the dialogue. Much of the dialogue here feels forced and cringeworthy. It didn’t feel like natural dialogue. All of the characters have pretty bad dialogue but I think the worst for me was Terrell, many times his dialogue quite literally felt like a white man trying to write dialogue for a black man and it just came off sounding like a bad stereotype, like when you see the tweets of men writing bad dialogue for female characters. Not quite as bad as that, but you get the point.
Another thing that bugged me was I feel like this book should have been longer. I know it’s a novella but the characters didn’t feel fleshed out, they seemed to just make rash decisions out of nowhere, things just happen suddenly and characters are quickly ushered from one scenario to the next. It felt like someone walking me through a haunted house rather than me experiencing it on my own.
When it was all said and done, I finished Hollow Heart because for all of my complaints, and despite the execution not hitting the mark, I still found the plot interesting enough to want to find out how it ends.
2/5 stars
vondav's review
4.0
I have only read one short story by this author, so didn't know what to expect, when I picked up this book.
As a serving Marine Harold came up against a lot of conflicts, his last tour left him physically and mentally injured. But when his home town is under threat from an evil being, named the Architect, he had to be that soldier again.
The one thing that struck me with this book, was the creepiness I felt when The Architect was in the scene, his description of how he made his creations gave me the shivers. The pace started slower until Harold's time came to face the creation and than I could not put it down.
The relationship with Harold and son Dale was believable and you could see Dale struggle with his dad's disabilities. However, he was one smart teenager who really came into his own.
This story had so much going on and by the end, I felt that I had run the gauntlet with Harold and co.
I enjoyed this book very much and will lookout for more from this author
As a serving Marine Harold came up against a lot of conflicts, his last tour left him physically and mentally injured. But when his home town is under threat from an evil being, named the Architect, he had to be that soldier again.
The one thing that struck me with this book, was the creepiness I felt when The Architect was in the scene, his description of how he made his creations gave me the shivers. The pace started slower until Harold's time came to face the creation and than I could not put it down.
The relationship with Harold and son Dale was believable and you could see Dale struggle with his dad's disabilities. However, he was one smart teenager who really came into his own.
This story had so much going on and by the end, I felt that I had run the gauntlet with Harold and co.
I enjoyed this book very much and will lookout for more from this author
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