The Hollow Places

A Novel

341 pages

English language

Published Dec. 3, 2020

ISBN:
978-1-5344-5112-4
Copied ISBN!
Goodreads:
50892288

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4 stars (7 reviews)

A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel.

Pray they are hungry.

Kara finds these words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle’s house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring the peculiar bunker—only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts…and the more you fear them, the stronger they become.

1 edition

Underwhelming

1 star

Sadly I didn't enjoy The Hollow Places as much as I expected to given all the praise for it I had seen online. It's a modern "cover" of Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, directly lifting several elements from Blackwood's short story. However it fails to replicate any of the tension and dread from the original. Any suspense or horror that might be there in The Hollow Places is constantly undercut by the quirky MCU-style humor, and the final act of the story is pretty cartoonish and absurd.

Skip this one and just read The Willows instead

The Hollow Places

4 stars

The Hollow Places is a horror novel by T. Kingfisher. The premise is that newly divorced Kara goes back to live in her uncle's curio museum; when a mysterious hole in the wall appears and goes to what seems to be another dimension, she and her barista friend investigate. Overall, horror is not usually my cuppa but this was an enjoyable creepy ride (and I'll read anything by T. Kingfisher at this point).

But he groaned and stomped around the hall for a few minutes, then said, "Okay. But this is how people die in horror movies, you know."

"You're not the teensiest bit curious?

"I'm incredibly curious! I've just also seen horror movies!"

This book is intensely creepy at times, and the horror elements all the more unsettling for being fuzzy and unseen and unknowable. I wish a little that there was a little bit more character development or …

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