A review by larkspire
The Hollow Ones by Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan

3.0

Like The Strain, The Hollow Ones has a promising premise but the execution is lacking. Odessa and her partner felt flat to me, and I found her motivations unconvincing outside of the novel's opening, which dragged on for far too long (imagine if The Strain had opened with Goodweather's divorce proceedings). Even the appearance of Blackwood didn't do much to grab my interest until far too late in the book. That said - I persisted (simply because I couldn't be bothered finding another horror in my library's poor Libby selection), and I was hooked by the end. Maybe by the time Part 2 is released I'll have forgotten enough of the drudgery that opens this book to read it.

The book's editing leaves a little to be desired, too. Blackwood seems to have gone through a few different names in the early drafts and ARCs of this book - fair enough, but there's an important reveal (or at least an oh-sh**-moment) tied to one of those former names that loses all of its impact and meaning in the final copy, and ought to have been excised.

Despite that, if you look at horror as reflecting the anxieties of the author and/or the nation, The Hollow Ones is a perfect case study for today. What's more appropriate than a monster

Spoiler

which causes mass shootings and suicide by cop

? It's not only cathartic but reassuring - the problem isn't us after all! Look! It's not our society that's the issue - it's demons! What a relief! (Or, less charitably, demons originally from the Middle East who prefer to target white Americans. Not del Toro's intended reading, I'm sure, but that doesn't mean this isn't also very suited to white America's fears and loathings). Unfortunately, an interesting case study in basic literary theory doesn't necessarily make for an interesting book. Maybe Part 2 will be better.