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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
A solid mystery that isn't exactly what I expected, but worthwhile nonetheless.
I quite enjoyed this book. Some of it was seriously relateable and some of it broke my heart a little bit. Overall it was a great easy read. Something I could have devoured on a summer weekend.
The Mystery of Hollow Places is a good YA book that tackles depression. At first I thought I was in for a thriller or a mystery, but the storyline is actually deeper and more realized. This book is captivating and very fast-paced.
The reason I'm giving this book a 3-star rating is because I read this at the wrong time. This is the first book I touched (tried to touch, at least) after I read A Little Life, which was also the book that so widely devastated me I decided a bit of self-impose "book break" because the sentimentality and the story of Hanya Yanagihara's heartbreaker just wouldn't leave me.
I feel bad about that because I thought The Mystery of Hollow Places deserves a better rating. But anyway, maybe I'll give this book another read one day and really try to take it all in.
The reason I'm giving this book a 3-star rating is because I read this at the wrong time. This is the first book I touched (tried to touch, at least) after I read A Little Life, which was also the book that so widely devastated me I decided a bit of self-impose "book break" because the sentimentality and the story of Hanya Yanagihara's heartbreaker just wouldn't leave me.
I feel bad about that because I thought The Mystery of Hollow Places deserves a better rating. But anyway, maybe I'll give this book another read one day and really try to take it all in.
Book #115 Read in 2016
The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos
This was a decent young adult mystery book. Imogene's mother left Im and her father when Im was just a baby. Then one day her father has disappeared. Imogene feels that his disappearance is linked to her mother's and begins her own investigation. Will she find answers about many things? Will this reveal some insight into herself? This was a good read. I borrowed the book from the public library.
The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos
This was a decent young adult mystery book. Imogene's mother left Im and her father when Im was just a baby. Then one day her father has disappeared. Imogene feels that his disappearance is linked to her mother's and begins her own investigation. Will she find answers about many things? Will this reveal some insight into herself? This was a good read. I borrowed the book from the public library.
This was a nice well-rounded read, no holes in the plot, no loose strings at the end. It focused on a resourceful teen with parents with mental illness, so a little dark, but managed to be light because of the typical teen drama as they worked to find the missing father. I liked a lot of the dialogue which was mostly realistic and honest.
The only details seventeen-year-old Imogene Scott has about her mother are ones gleaned from the bedtime story her father told every night.
Before he became a best-selling novelist, Joshua Zhi Scott was a forensic pathologist who met Imogene's mother when she came to identify a body. He would then tell Imogene that her mother was always lonely. He'd even say that she was troubled waters. They would never talk about why her mother left, especially not since her father remarried and Lindy is now part of their family.
When Imogene's father disappears in the middle of the night, Imogene thinks he might want her to follow the clues he left behind; he might want Imogene to find him and maybe find her mother as well.
With unlikely help from her best friend and all of the skills learned from reading her father's mysteries, Imogene hopes to find her father and unravel the secrets surrounding her own past. But, as Imogene knows too well, things aren't always perfect at the end of a mystery in The Mystery of Hollow Places (2016) by Rebecca Podos.
The Mystery of Hollow Places is Podos' first novel.
Podos delivers an eerie mystery in this surprising tale. The Mystery of Hollow Places is also a solid homage to mysteries and Gothic novels alike as interpreted by a heroine whose favorite novel is Rebecca.
Imogene's first-person narration is pragmatic and often insightful as she makes sense of her mother's absence and her father's struggle with bipolar disorder. Unlike many teen detective stories, this book also remains decidedly in the realm of possibility as Imogene works with what she has and within the limitations inherent to a teenager trying to investigate some very adult problems.
Although the plot focuses on the mystery of finding her father, Imogene's story is just as much about acceptance and the strength found in friendships and choosing who to call family. Elements of magic realism and a stark Massachusetts backdrop add atmosphere to this sometimes choppy mystery with a diverse cast of characters.
The Mystery of Hollow Places is a strong debut and an unexpected mystery. Recommended for fans of traditional mysteries, suspenseful stories filled with twists, as well as readers looking for an atmospheric novel to keep them company on a cold winter night (or to evoke one anyway!).
Possible Pairings: Don't Ever Change by M. Beth Bloom, Finding Mr. Brightside by Jay Clark, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Truth Commission by Susan Juby, Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney, The Devil and Winnie Flynn by Micol and David Ostow, Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales
*A more condensed version of this review appeared in an issue of School Library Journal from which it can be seen on various sites online*
Before he became a best-selling novelist, Joshua Zhi Scott was a forensic pathologist who met Imogene's mother when she came to identify a body. He would then tell Imogene that her mother was always lonely. He'd even say that she was troubled waters. They would never talk about why her mother left, especially not since her father remarried and Lindy is now part of their family.
When Imogene's father disappears in the middle of the night, Imogene thinks he might want her to follow the clues he left behind; he might want Imogene to find him and maybe find her mother as well.
With unlikely help from her best friend and all of the skills learned from reading her father's mysteries, Imogene hopes to find her father and unravel the secrets surrounding her own past. But, as Imogene knows too well, things aren't always perfect at the end of a mystery in The Mystery of Hollow Places (2016) by Rebecca Podos.
The Mystery of Hollow Places is Podos' first novel.
Podos delivers an eerie mystery in this surprising tale. The Mystery of Hollow Places is also a solid homage to mysteries and Gothic novels alike as interpreted by a heroine whose favorite novel is Rebecca.
Imogene's first-person narration is pragmatic and often insightful as she makes sense of her mother's absence and her father's struggle with bipolar disorder. Unlike many teen detective stories, this book also remains decidedly in the realm of possibility as Imogene works with what she has and within the limitations inherent to a teenager trying to investigate some very adult problems.
Although the plot focuses on the mystery of finding her father, Imogene's story is just as much about acceptance and the strength found in friendships and choosing who to call family. Elements of magic realism and a stark Massachusetts backdrop add atmosphere to this sometimes choppy mystery with a diverse cast of characters.
The Mystery of Hollow Places is a strong debut and an unexpected mystery. Recommended for fans of traditional mysteries, suspenseful stories filled with twists, as well as readers looking for an atmospheric novel to keep them company on a cold winter night (or to evoke one anyway!).
Possible Pairings: Don't Ever Change by M. Beth Bloom, Finding Mr. Brightside by Jay Clark, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Truth Commission by Susan Juby, Blue Plate Special by Michelle D. Kwasney, The Devil and Winnie Flynn by Micol and David Ostow, Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales
*A more condensed version of this review appeared in an issue of School Library Journal from which it can be seen on various sites online*
3.50, to be specific.
It started with a magical story that tangled me into itself, but as the book progressed, some of that magic faded and its roots loosened their grip.
The Mystery of Hollow Places is not an overly dramatic book, where you can feel the author pulling at strings and manipulating more than telling the story to drag emotion out of you. It is a book about a girl named Imogene searching for her missing, medical-mystery-writing father and piecing together her past in the process.
I like Podos’s writing style. It’s pretty but not over the top and pretentious.
Despite what some other reviews have said, I liked Imogene’s friendship with Jessa. Some people have said she just falls into the stereotypically shallow, vapid, sexed-up friend category, but I didn’t get that vibe.
Did I just use the word vibe unironically?
Yes, it was mentioned several times that Jessa is beautiful, but she wasn’t just used as a stage prop to make Imogene look better.
I was impressed with how Podos handled Imogene’s crush on Jessa’s brother. In another writer’s hands, it could have dominated the story and twisted it into a mawkish romance, which would have degraded it at least a star. The Mystery of Hollow Places explores more than just the romance angle, including good female relationships and a (somewhat) more realistic portrayal of teenagers solving a mystery.
It isn’t an earth-shattering piece of literature that an English professor years from now will discuss for a few classes, but it was entertaining and I see nothing wrong in that.
The same review, posted on my site:
A Book Insomniac
Rebecca Podos is currently working on Like Water, a contemporary, LGBTQ book about a girl named Savannah who leaves home and the fear of inheriting a genetic illness. It’s set to be published in fall 2017.
It started with a magical story that tangled me into itself, but as the book progressed, some of that magic faded and its roots loosened their grip.
The Mystery of Hollow Places is not an overly dramatic book, where you can feel the author pulling at strings and manipulating more than telling the story to drag emotion out of you. It is a book about a girl named Imogene searching for her missing, medical-mystery-writing father and piecing together her past in the process.
I like Podos’s writing style. It’s pretty but not over the top and pretentious.
Despite what some other reviews have said, I liked Imogene’s friendship with Jessa. Some people have said she just falls into the stereotypically shallow, vapid, sexed-up friend category, but I didn’t get that vibe.
Did I just use the word vibe unironically?
Yes, it was mentioned several times that Jessa is beautiful, but she wasn’t just used as a stage prop to make Imogene look better.
I was impressed with how Podos handled Imogene’s crush on Jessa’s brother. In another writer’s hands, it could have dominated the story and twisted it into a mawkish romance, which would have degraded it at least a star. The Mystery of Hollow Places explores more than just the romance angle, including good female relationships and a (somewhat) more realistic portrayal of teenagers solving a mystery.
It isn’t an earth-shattering piece of literature that an English professor years from now will discuss for a few classes, but it was entertaining and I see nothing wrong in that.
The same review, posted on my site:
A Book Insomniac
Rebecca Podos is currently working on Like Water, a contemporary, LGBTQ book about a girl named Savannah who leaves home and the fear of inheriting a genetic illness. It’s set to be published in fall 2017.
Imogene Scott has a missing father. Famous crime fiction novelist Joshua Scott walked away from his home, leaving Immie and her stepmother with a lot of worry and even more questions. What follows is a complex family drama as seventeen year old Immie takes it on herself to bring her father home. Believing that her father left her clues to find him, she embarks on road trip after train ride after bus trip to get to the answers. While Immie is loathe to disclose her instincts with her step-mother, she does enlist her best friend Jessa, a sidekick who puts the L in Loyalty, to trek around New England scrabbling for clues. Unexpectedly her search brings her in touch with her mother who abandoned her at age two, opening an age old wound. This is a suspenseful mystery that keeps readers fully engaged. That Immie believes so passionately that she can save her father is testament to her heart and intelligence. While this novel does allow for the child-who-keeps-secrets-from-adults-so-that-the-protagonist-can-do-the-unrealistic, Immie is an amazingly resilient teen and this plot technique actually works. The narrator has a perfect inflection for Immie, which is dry, serious and reflective. An excellent addition to any teen collection, this novel threads issues of mental illness, loyalty and resiliency.
Grades 8 and up. Some mature language.
Grades 8 and up. Some mature language.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
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:
Yes
This is probably closer to two stars instead of three, but I liked the ending.