Name: jen's review of The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
Item: The Hollow Places
Rating: 4
Author: jen

T. Kingfisher

A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel from the author of the “innovative, unexpected, and absolutely chilling” (Mira Grant, Nebula Award–winning author) The Twisted Ones. Pray they are hungry. Kara finds the 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 this peculiar area—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 one fears them, the stronger they become. With her distinctive “delightfully fresh and subversive” (SF Bluestocking) prose and the strange, sinister wonder found in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, The Hollow Places is another compelling and white-knuckled horror novel that you won’t be able to put down.

A Novel

The Hollow Places

Alexandra Jacob

“Did I get out?" I asked him. He shook his head sadly and opened his mouth to say something, but only willow leaves came out.

Do objects that are loved know that they are loved?

Elke

Michael Bettis

this one reallllyy creeped me out, reading it at night was so unsettling & the world building & imagery was so good. the characters were also so lovable, i love a small cast of characters that you really get to know :’) the willow world and how thin the world felt, like a video game that you can fall through and is so hollow?? genius, itll stick with me forever methinks

T. Kingfisher has my heart. This was funny and creepy. 

Hannah Bateman

Patty Pforte

I like T. Kingfisher's horror work; one of the few cases where the perpetually-online-millennial humour hits in a nice blend with the macabre. I also find her work to very creative in concept and execution.

But I think the narration of the audiobook let me down a bit here as it really made this feel more fun than creepy (which is what I was actually looking for).

I like T. Kingfisher's horror work; one of the few cases where the perpetually-online-millennial humour hits in a nice blend with the macabre. I also find her work to very creative in concept and execution.

But I think the narration of the audiobook let me down a bit here as it really made this feel more fun than creepy (which is what I was actually looking for).

Sarah Sammis

At first the tone of the novel reminds me of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000) for their first foray through the hole in the wall. Once they reach the outside, though, it settles on being more like Three Years with the Rat by Jay Hosking (2017).

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2020/comm...

33FFFF - family utopia tkaronto

Fun & breezy read. Waaay too lighthearted to be scary.

Colleen

4 Stars
 
*A creepy horror story with a surprising amount of snark*


This was a random library pick when I was in the mood for some horror. I went into it knowing almost nothing about it but was pleasantly surprised by the result.

The Hollow Places started out deceptively light and not at all like a horror story. Honestly, both the tone and the story setup of "divorced woman moves back to small hometown" felt more like the start of a second chance romance than a horror story. With her life in shambles, Kara moved back to her hometown to help her uncle with his museum of curiosities. Everything was fine until she discovered a hole in the wall that led to another world – a dangerous and disturbing world.

The story was told in person by Kara. Her snarky attitude did make things entertaining; although I could have done without all the time she spent talking about writing her fanfiction. The first person narration gave some things away (as this style often does), but not enough to ruin the tension of the story.

The story did gradually build in the horror elements, but the almost hammy narration continued. At times it was amusing. And sure, I have a feeling my reaction to those sort of events would ring with a similar mix of hysteria and sarcasm. (Although I would have picked The Itsy Bitsy Spider as my earbug rather than John Jacob Jinglehiemer Smit.) But there were times when I felt that the humor cut the tension a little. Despite that, the story did end up being atmospheric and creepy as all get out. I was really worried in the beginning that this would end up like Horrorstör which never made up its mind whether to be spoofy or scary and failed to affectively be either. But The Hollow Places ended up striking the right balance.


  “Come on, let's go back to the coffee shop and I'll make us Irish coffees and we'll discuss this like people who don't die in the first five minutes of a horror movie.”

The other thing that annoyed me was the excessive number of Narnia references! I get it; the mysteries river with holes to other worlds reminded Kara of The Wood between Worlds from Narnia. Sure, that makes sense. But I did not need to be reminded of that comparison about a dozen times!

The other obvious source material was The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. And if you haven’t read anything by that classic horror author, then please do. He deserves a lot more recognition than he gets these days. Anyway, back to this book: Not only were the willows and river clearly inspired by that story, the writing itself had echoes of Blackwood’s style. Not Kara’s snarkiness, but the almost poetic descriptions of the chilling scenes. And those descriptions were what made the horror elements shine, because they vividly set the scene for some disturbing events. Though, I should be clear that this is not a retelling. It’s more like a companion story imagining an expanded world beyond its source material.


  “The body I focused on was faceless. Its neck stretched out, twisting like the willow stems, and I could not tell if it had two legs or ten or a hundred, if its arms were really arms or if they were tree roots. It slipped up from the sand, squirmed eyelessly through the willows, while its shape changed as the leaves fell across it.”

If you are looking for a horror story that is creepy and creative with notes of humor, then check out The Hollow Places.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 4 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 5 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars

Boothby

Quintessential horror novel. There was so much compassion here here between Kara, Simon, and even uncle Earl. This book was bizarre, wonderful, and terrifying. Kingfisher has a great eye for recognizing apparently innocuous details that can become uncanny.

Another book that leave you with an unnerving feeling of fear that hooks onto your very soul. If I had to give it a 1 sentence description: Adult Gravity Falls + Christianity.  Also, I don’t think I’ve ever loved/appreciated taxidermy more that I have after reading this terrifying book!

creepy & beautiful .. the plot & world building are amazing. i love carrot & simon & uncle earl & the wonder museum. my only issue is with the millennial-ish humour and dialogue … what moves the dead was one of my favourite books of last year and i love kingfisher’s writing, this just missed the mark a little for me. still a worthwhile read tho n i’m excited to read more of her work :) 

James Winduss

** spoiler alert **
           This book…. I don’t really know what else to say except I just kind of hated this book. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the visuals which were the main source of ‘horror’ throughout the novel and I’m all for letting the reader in on more than the protagonists but come on! You’re going to go to another world/dimension, see a giant otter swimming in the water and not think ‘Hmmmmmm, maybe this strange creepy otter carving that I keep finding on the floor has something to do with the portal to another dimension that’s opened up in my wall?!’ when you get back home? Please…. I also never knew you could use the word benevolent so many times in one novel but there you go. I’ve never read I book I disliked so quickly, but I just wanted to be done with it so I could move on and move on I shall! I can’t say I’ll be picking up anything from this author again anytime soon that’s for sure.

Ryan LaFerney

Partly inspired by Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows", a story H.P. Lovecraft thought was one of the most terrifying stories ever written, The Hollow Places is a rollicking, fun, Lovecraftain horror story from the brilliant mind of T. Kingfisher. In The Hollow Places, T. Kingfisher takes on another classic of weird fiction by presenting a hole in the wall of a Curiosity Museum which leads to the “region of singular loneliness and desolation” described in Algernon Blackwood’s 1907 The Willows. 

The tale starts innocently enough. After her divorce, a graphic artist named Kara goes to live with her gentle and eccentric Uncle Earl (he calls her Carrot). Settled in the back room of his museum of strange objects, Kara can live rent-free as long as she helps him categorize his oddities. Next door to the museum is the Black Hen, a coffee shop whose barista, a nutty and lovable guy named Simon, may have eaten his twin in the womb. He's a weird and fun dude, but not the source of horror.

The objects in Earl’s museum are what you’d expect. There are statues of Bigfoot and Mothman, a Feejee mermaid and all manner of sad, taxidermied animals, including an eight-foot-long giant river otter. Fans frequently send objects to Earl, and one day an item that Kara finds especially sinister arrives. But like everything else, she inventories it and puts it somewhere among the oddments. Then, as is the case whenever something really creepy comes into an already creepy museum, strange things start to happen. This is when things take a turn for the weird as she and barista Simon from the café next door discover an impossible hallway in their building that defies the laws of physics and their curiosity prompts them to explore where it leads… Spoiler alert: it’s not Narnia. What Kara and Simon have inadvertently stumbled into is a realm filled with terrifying beings beyond comprehension and they’ll need all their wits and a healthy dose of luck to survive.

Kingfisher’s superpower is her ability to describe things that cannot possibly be, things that can’t be there but are—things that the human mind can’t wrap itself around. She is also great at characterization. Her characters are very relatable. Kara and Simon endear themselves immediately to the reader and feel like life-long friends and are given an impressive level of development. Kara in particular is a charming narrator and spending time with her as she catalogs oddities within the museum is quite fun. She is also an easy character to root for when the horror starts to happen. You want her to survive and you want her to solve the mystery within The Hollow Places. 

The book is a page-turner, and the elements introduced all come together to a very satisfying conclusion in the finale. The Hollow Places is a treat for fans of the weird. Do yourself a favor and read it soon!

For fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Annihilation, H.P. Lovecraft.

Janice Hopper

Another creepy but enjoyable book from T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon).

Not all portals lead to places that are pleasant or even benign. Some places are deadly. And love and kindness, even toward inanimate objects and places, might just save your life. 

This story was inspired by Algernon Blackwood’s story “The Willows”. I haven’t read that AFAIK, but I have it queued up. 

I am unabashed fan girl where this author is concerned. I like the way she thinks, and the way she writes. 

Recommended!

Ashley Janssen

Magnus Dahl

Vilken jävla resa den här boken var. KUNDE KNAPPT SOVA FÖR JAG VAR OROLIG FÖR HUVUDPERSONENS KATT.

sophia n

god, i ... loved every. single. second. of this book. i felt like this was written? for me?? hello???? this is not a review okay thanks bye

Bonita

3.5 ⭐️ rounded up! I really enjoyed the writing style of this book & the two MCs were lovely :)

Catarina Silva

4 stars
A solid creepy weird book with a great audiobook

Danny Engström

Lauren Sullivan

Content warnings: (view spoiler)[violence, death (off-page), alcohol, cheating (of side character) (hide spoiler)]

While I’d read one of this author’s previous fantasy novels, I hadn’t realized she also wrote horror – until I started thinking about the bad guys from Paladin’s Grace. I feel like the highest praise you can give a horror book is that it gave you nightmares. After making the (glorious) mistake of starting this book before bedtime, I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely terrified of the trees outside my window. It’s weeks later and I’m still having nightmares. If that’s not a stellar recommendation, I’m not sure what is!

After a surprising divorce, Kara has gone home to Hog Chapel, North Carolina and her uncle’s Wonder Museum. A quirky place chockfull of taxidermy and sunflower-seed portraits, it’s a good environment to lick her wounds – and just far enough away from her mother. But all Kara’s worries are soon eclipsed when she discovers a hole in the wall in the museum that leads to another place. Soon Kara and Simon, the barista from the coffee shop next door, are exploring a world full of little islands in a seemingly serene forest of willows… until it isn’t.

“Come on, let’s go back to the coffee shop and I’ll make us Irish coffees and we’ll discuss this like people who don’t die in the first five minutes of a horror movie.”

Both Kara and Simon are amazingly realistic characters and they feel human. They react like normal people confronted with some pretty crazy circumstances, though probably with better humor. One example is how Kara spends some of her initial evenings in the museum. It doesn’t have wifi, so Kara curls up against the wall connecting to the coffee shop so she can use their internet to stalk her ex-husband on social media. The visual of her in the dark, surrounded by the whimsical and grotesque exhibits, somehow separated from the rest of the world, really stuck with me. The story builds slowly – sad divorced woman! quirky taxidermy mice! mysterious hole in the wall! Narnia-like forest! – but when it hits, it hits hard. There’s lots of quiet moments to let the tension build (“oh, thank goodness, they’re totally safe now… right?”) and I especially loved the addition of the epistolary-like Bible narrative, which follows a group of soldiers who also end up in the willow world. If this were a blockbuster movie, they’d be the main focus of the movie – instead, we get two average people, a barista and a graphic designer/part-time museum employee, and that’s what makes this book amazing.

“We cannot save the world with sheet metal and batik!”
“Why not?”

I read this book weeks ago and keep thinking about it – not just the scary bits (trees why trees) but also bits of the plot. Pain is a reoccurring theme, both Kara’s emotional pain from the divorce and physical pain. When Kara arrives at the museum, emotionally spent from the divorce and barely holding herself together, it’s Uncle Earl’s back pain that leads to Kara cataloging the collection, and then later (view spoiler)[it’s Kara’s hurt leg that saves her from Them.  (hide spoiler)] And in the end, it’s being surrounded by the place and people she loves (and who love her back) that are what help Kara get over her divorce (never mind the holes in the universe filled with monsters) and what save her. Even reeling from her divorce, Kara knows she’s still loved, like when her Uncle Earl sets up her room with her childhood favorite, a taxidermied Roosevelt elk head she named Prince. I think what this author does exceptionally well is writing a book that’s simultaneously terrifying and comforting, and the mix worked perfectly for me.

Overall, I adored this book and I’ve already picked up the author’s previous horror book. Easily 4.5 stars, and I can practically guarantee this book will be on my top 10 of the year list. Highly recommended!

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Eleanor Luhar

I am not entirely sure how to describe this book. What I can easily say, however, is that it is great. It is so unique and strange and actually really quite creepy in parts. 
In short, the plot revolves around Kara in the midst of a divorce, who moves into the spare room of her uncle's 'Wonder Museum'. Kara (or Carrot, according to Uncle Earl) has an abundance of fond memories of the museum, which is full of taxidermy and strange relics from across the world (both real and fake). But then Kara and Simon, the owner of the coffee shop next door, discover an impossible series of corridors and rooms behind the museum. Here, they find a bunker with a rather old corpse, as well as a door leading to... somewhere else.
The other world described by Kingfisher in this book is fascinating. There is a huge sense of anticipation and fear, with little clues and hints being dropped throughout. I've honestly never come across anything quite like it. 
Possibly the most intriguing thing about this novel is how comic it can be, too. The characters have a great relationship (not romantic in the slightest, which is a relief to me) and the dialogue is great. They're sarcastic and just so human. I especially love Simon, with all his eccentricities and hilarious one-liners.
The only reason I took away half a star for this book is the fact that I'm not sure how well it would be re-read. Once you know the ending, I just don't know if the atmosphere and tension would quite be the same. Other than that, I really loved this book. Definitely recommend!

ghost girl in satin

The weirdest and scariest book I've read this year. I loved the characters, Beau, and the weird setting, and the Wonder Museum, and the horror elements.

danielle bush

I absolutely loved this book.! It was spooky and delighfully creepy. It kept me sucked in, and I read it in one sitting. I just needed to know how it was going to end!.. 
Kara has just moved into her uncles Curiosity museum, when she finds a hole in the wall. Her friend Simon offers to help her patch it up, when they realize that there is a space behind the wall.. A hallway.. and what are you going to do but explore it and see where it goes.. 
The whole vibe of this book was perfect, exactly what I was hoping it would be. It kind of reminded me of the Twilight zone, when something seems impossible, but also perfectly plausible.. Could there be other worlds out there that are so close to ours that the right set of circumstances could have you falling through? What would happen if you did, and what would be waiting for you on the other side? and what would you do to get yourselves back home where hopefully the other world won't be able to follow. 
.I will definitley be checking out this authors backlist, and anything she releases in the future..

Olivera Mitić

Savršena mešavina knjige The Luminous Dead i serijala The Magicians. Na momente je baš jeziva, dok je u drugim navratima neodoljivo duhovita. Strava, bizarna i originalna priča za ovo neko doba godine. Mislim da će me konačno naterati da pročitam Narniju.

Michael Bettis &
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

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