crofteereader 's review for:

The Hollow Heart by Marie Rutkoski

3.0

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I did not enjoy this one nearly as much as the first one. I think the focus on storytelling and what stories mean both to those who hear and those who stories are told about was brilliant, and I loved that it came up again and again. The stories we tell about ourselves to make sure that we remain the heroes in our own lives. The stories we tell about our loved ones that may be entirely wrong or too narrow or too vague, that then influence (for better or worse) how we respond to them. The stories we hear about the people we know, even if just in passing, and how that changes who we think they are and how they therefore must see us.

But, alas, so much of this book is just Nirrim being a very boring villain.

Sid was the real hero of this story as she confronted the things she'd always been told and what she assumed to fill in those gaps. She's the one who grows and makes a journey, whereas both Nirrim's and The God's perspectives both just... Take up space. Sid's POV is where we get to experience even just a taste of Rutkoski's skill with snappy dialogue, where we get to dig into the bloody history behind her parents' happiness, where we get to examine whether one should choose to be happy or safe and what that means.

But this just felt so much more... Surface level (as a whole) than The Midnight Lie.

{Thank you Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review; all thoughts are my own}