Name: Livia's review of The Hollow Heart by Marie Rutkoski
Item: The Hollow Heart
Rating: 4
Author: Livia

Marie Rutkoski

Intrigue, romance, and magic abound in The Hollow Heart, the heart-stopping conclusion to Marie Rutkoski's Forgotten Gods duology. Nirrim’s heart is lost, traded to the god of thieves in order to restore her people's memories of their city's history. Meanwhile, Sid, the person she once loved most, has returned to Herran to take up her duty to the crown.But frightening rumours are growing in the Herrani court: of a new threat rising across the sea, of magic unleashed upon the world, and of a cruel, black-haired queen who can push false memories into your mind, so that you believe your dearest friends to be your enemies.Sid doesn't know that this queen is Nirrim, seeking revenge against a world that has wronged her. Can Sid save Nirrim from herself? And does Nirrim even want to be saved? As blood is shed and war begins, Sid and Nirrim find that it might not matter what they want . . . for the gods have their own plans.

The Hollow Heart

I loved this bit of detail about the abundant purple wildflowers and the different fabric of the caste clothes. A natural way to bring some worldbuilding into the setting.

Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin

... The familiar smell I associate with her: indi soap made from the perfume of tenacious purple flowers that grow in wild in the Ward.

The clothes in her wardrobe are nicer than anything I wore during my childhood, when I never thought it wrong that her dresses were made of cotton, not wincey, like mine. 

"Help me, damn the gods." My anger feels murderous, and I want to weep for how tired I am of always wrangling it under control. When my elders accuse me of being too merry, of shrugging away anything serious, I think: you would not like me better if I showed what I truly feel. You do not know how hard it is to pretend to be unbothered.

After she leaves, the wax drips, the flames sputter and lower. The oil in my table lamp burns out, leaving a heavy, slick scent in the air. There is no light but the candle flames and their reflections. One hisses, and then the other, and I am left alone in the dark.

I push open a window. The night is dense. Warm and sticky. Sweet, too, with the scent of white, night-blooming flowers that have opened their faces to the moon. The night holds summer's end: the honey left at the bottom of an almost-empty jar.

When I was little, he would sing a lullaby to me every night before bed. How did I get so far away from that moment, when I was cherished?

My father's silence grows heavy, wary, and while I know from my aunt Sarsine that the king has a temper, he has never shown it to me, not directly. Instead, he gets like this: warlike, his gaze acute, his expression showing that he does not know his enemy's moves but he does not like what he suspects. Instead of looking angry he simply looks ready.

I toy with a bit of downy tissue paper. It is tishin paper, made from pounding the stems of mulberry trees and soaking the pulp in a vat of water and hibiscus sap. Incredibly thin and sheer, tishin is barely paper. It feels the way clouds look. Made a little thicker than what I hold between my fingers, it can be used for paper lanterns. A little thinner, and my mother can use it for her own purposes. Watch, she once told me, laying an airy sheet of tishin over a page flled with writing. The writing vanished, and appeared to be a blank page that could easily be stitched into the final pages of an innocent-seeming book shipped along with its secret message to the recipient, who would scrape away the tishin to reveal the words beneath. Even paper, my mother said, has its secrets.

His hand tightens. “Don't apologize to him for running away." Surprised, I turn to him. He adds, "Never apologize for who you are or what you needed to do to be yourself."

Livia

'A doorway to a world of magic, vengeance and romance that will keep you guessing until the last pages' Cassandra Clare, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shadowhunter Chronicles Intrigue, romance, and magic abound in The Hollow Heart, the heart-stopping conclusion to Marie Rutkoski's Forgotten Gods duology. Nirrim's heart is lost, traded to the god of thieves in order to restore her people's memories of their city's history. Meanwhile, Sid, the person she once loved most, has returned to Herran to take up her duty to the crown. But frightening rumours are growing in the Herrani court: of a new threat rising across the sea, of magic unleashed upon the world, and of a cruel, black-haired queen who can push false memories into your mind, so that you believe your dearest friends to be your enemies. Sid doesn't know that this queen is Nirrim, seeking revenge against a world that has wronged her. Can Sid save Nirrim from herself? And does Nirrim even want to be saved? As blood is shed and war begins, Sid and Nirrim find that it might not matter what they want . . . for the gods have their own plans. *** Praise for Marie Rutkoski *** 'Lush, romantic, and powerful. In The Midnight Lie, Marie Rutkoski spins a sensuous tale about awakening to the truth' Malinda Lo, author of Ash 'Utterly immersive and gorgeous' Roshani Chokshi, New York Times-bestselling author of The Gilded Wolves

Helena

** spoiler alert **
           thank you thank you thank you marie rutkoski for all the kestrin moments. i love these characters with all my heart and seeing them as parents was just the best thing.
them finding out about the pregnancy, the feather, the passage between their rooms... ugh they’re the best !!
i loved the plot, all the interactions between sid and her parents, and sid and roshar. my heart is so happy.
all the old characters too, even trajan!
sid grew on me in this book, she was smart like her parents and pushed through everything fiercely. i loved her character in this book so much more.
and i loooved the gods!! it was so interesting to me, finding out who was behind everything and the moment in the pantheon was so cool. i wish we could get more about them.

i can’t make proper reviews about these books because i get too excited but please read this duology if you loved the winner’s curse.

Tone and pacing were quite off... i understand why it was written from vastly diff povs but it made the transition from chapter to chapter v jarring. And the conclusion was way too easily reached

clover

jupiter

I do not know how to rate this book. comparing it to the midnight lie would not do either books justice. they are completely different- the prose, pacing, and povs. 

to start off we are reading through the pov of three different characters, two we know and one we don’t. this book picks off where we ended before, nirrim is in god mode and sid is going back home. the whole pov/arc involving the god was really interesting and i enjoyed it so much, i kinda wished now we had smth similar to it in the original. 

following nirrims pov was fun cos she’s a completely different person and it’s a true hero to villain arc that isn’t common in most books. unfortunately there was no real plot to any of her scenes, it was very character driven- to see the consequences of her actions. that had a very different pace compared to sids pov. sid actually had a plot and it really help developed her character, allowing the audience to learn about her family and history and who she is. also felt like a little a winners curse promo, like we saw so much of her family i wouldn’t be surprised if so much was included so readers would be interested in reading the other books. 

while i enjoyed the surface level points of book, my favorite parts had to do with sid and nirrims relationship with their sexuality and gender. i loved how sid explored her gender identity and really explained things to everyone. the history of lesbian identity and gender expression isn’t smth that is commonly talked about in many lgbt spaces so i really appreciated how sid was presented in the book. evil lesbian nirrim and non-binary (he/him) lesbian sid served. 

what i really wish we got to see was what happened after nirrim gained her compassion back. i would’ve loved to see how she dealt with her actions and grief, how her relationship with sid would develop from there, how sids father would react to this land touched by gods, how the ppl on the island dealt with new technologies and life without a ruler. so much happened that was just crazy but none of it felt resolved, it was like yes this happened no we are never going to talk about it again. like nirrim committed murder, not once or twice but a bunch of times and we r just not gonna talk about it 😭. 

marie i implore you to write a novella, this book was purely character driven, so let’s see how these characters changed and grew. 

some parts were one stars for the pure frustration i felt and others were five stars for how much i enjoyed it.

grace richards

3.5,,, we really had all that build up for everything to be wrapped up in one chapter

Savannah Winchell

Bravo Marie Rutkoski. Although I did not love this as much as I love The Midnight Lie, this book is such a balm for me because of the way Kestrel and Arin are portrayed in this book, by showing us what comes after their ending in The Winner's Trilogy.
I absolutely love the in-depth exploration of Sid's character and her complicated relationship with herself and everyone around her, and how she's struggling to find where she belongs and to step outside her parents' shadow for the sake of her happiness and future. Most of Nirrim's pov is her conquering the island and other nations, and how we get to see pragmatic, heartless Nirrim chastise and bring down past Nirrim for her naivety and helplessness. It was such a refreshing read and I love the ending, albeit hoping for it to be slightly longer and be resolved in a clearer manner. This is truly one of my favorite duologies now, and I will never stop getting people to read this.

Tegan Anderson

An eARC of this book was received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Hollow Heart was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, even though I only found out about and read the first book a week before requesting the ARC. This book is narrated by Nirrim, Sid, and a third narrator, so I’m going to split this review into each of their perspectives. This review will also contain untagged spoilers for The Midnight Lie, but all The Hollow Heart spoilers will be tagged as such.

Nirrim
At the end of The Midnight Lie, Nirrim offered up her heart to the God of Thieves in order to restore her people’s memories of their city’s history. The Half Kith who once lived imprisoned behind the city’s wall now realize that many among them are powerful.
I did not realise how much I loved Nirrim for her heart until I experienced her without it. I had a complicated time with her narration, sometimes even uncomfortable. On one hand, I support her wanting to roleplay as a god as she uses her powers and this newfound inner strength to seek revenge by any means possible. It can be exciting to see a heroine completely lose touch with herself and give into an ambition, and I liked reading the exploration of Nirrim losing herself and realising that she maybe didn't know who she was in the first place.
On the other hand, a lot of her words and actions didn’t feel like her and I found myself pining for the Old Nirrim more often than not. Her situation were painful, but her actions were more so, and I read on while being both conflicted and compelled.
I also found myself wishing that the absence of Sid in her narrative would lead to a deeper development of the characters who returned from the first book, but Nirrim’s plot line felt very central to her quest for vengeance.

Sid
Meanwhile, the person Nirrim once loved most, Sid, has returned to her home country of Herran, where she must navigate the politics of being a rogue princess who has finally agreed to do her duty.
This book and my heart and all the stars on this review are owned by Sid. In the first book, she was confident and untouchable. In this, we’re introduced to her more serious and vulnerable side as she pines both to love and be loved. Her storyline focuses both on discovering what caused her mother’s ill health - poison, not sickness - and how she can fix her relationship with both of her parents. It’s exactly what I wanted from a continuation of her story and I fell in love with her character all over again.
I also want to acknowledge that I had no idea that this duology was set in the same universe or shared characters as an original trilogy, so I want to praise Rutoski for creating something that didn’t make me feel as if I was missing out on something else (although I will be reading the original trilogy as soon as possible).

The God
The third narrator of this book is a character known as The God until the final few moments, and it took until then for me to realise what their role was in the narrative. A majority of their chapters were dedicated to telling the backstories of characters and the history of the island that were hinted about in the first book, but didn’t get the chance to be developed. We learn more about the beginnings of the island before the gods fled, Nirrim’s parentage, and a few more moments about Raven’s life that aren’t essential to the narrative, but just nice to know as extra information.

These three storylines don't merge until around 70% (maybe later) of the way into the book. This disjointed structure is the main thing that stopped me giving this book the same five star rating as The Midnight Lie as switching back and forth between three seemingly unrelated narratives was quite jarring for me. It also meant that the first half of the book felt very slow paced and drawn out, and that a very eventful finale to the duology felt rushed, told by the most convenient rather than the most impactful narrator.

Overall, I would give this book 4 stars, maybe even 3.5 stars. It was imperfect, but still wonderful in more places than I can list. Learning more about this world and the history and the magic system was a delight as well as the exploration of compulsory heterosexuality and being a lesbian, both things which I think are rare to find in a fantasy. The writing style was simple but effective, but I did feel unsatisfied by the ending. I also missed the relationship between Sid and Nirrim, the thing that made me fall in love with The Midnight Lie.

Maria

история рассыпалась на части и так и не смогла собраться, даже в конце. вторая часть получилась скорее про отношения Сид с родителями, чем про Сид и Ниррим, а от самой Ниррим в этой книжке осталась лишь карикатура.

Karli P

The Hollow Heart has been one of my most anticipated reads of 2021 and it did not disappoint. 

I absolutely loved the multiple POVs and interconnected stories in this sequel. I appreciate especially being able to see inside Sid's thoughts. 

Nirrim's POV was difficult to read, but in the best way. It was like she was a shadow of her former self and leaves you just begging for other characters to try to help her faster. 

I read the original Winner's Trilogy after I read The Midnight Lie and fell in love with Marie Rutkoski's writing style. I appreciated Sid's POV bringing us back to characters from TWT, but still focusing on her and making sure this was her story.

Sid's descriptions of how she experiences gender also made me feel very connected to her. I thought Sid seemed like a nonbinary lesbian in the first book and this one pointed even more in that direction. 

I loved the focus on familial love as well as romantic in this story as well. Love and forgiveness have been major themes in both the winner's trilogy and this duology and I think they are written and emphasized so beautifully. 

My only complaint is that I wish it was longer so that I could have seen more of Sid and Nirrim being together. I don't think it was a bad thing that they were separated, it was necessary for the story, I just wish we had gotten a little bit more. 

Like the first book, the writing was absolutely beautiful. The way environments and feelings are described made me put down the book several times just to think about how pretty those descriptions were. 

This book, especially near the ending, read like a beautiful queer fairytale and I look forward to more of Rutkoski's writing in the future.

Hayley 📖🌈💜🌸

Wow wow wow.
This was both amazing and sort of horrifying, I absolutely loved it from start to finish. This was so much more than I had hoped for, and I honestly was a little scared to read it, because I was a little disappointed by The Midnight Lie, but this went above and beyond any expectations I had. This was Rutkoski at her finest. I was back in the world of The Winner's Curse and I fucking love it here. 
I absolutely loved getting back into this world, getting to see these characters again, and getting lost in the storytelling. 
New Nirrim is a fucking psycho, and I am scared of her, thank you very much. But Sid is so soft and intricate and interesting, I loved seeing her relationship with her parents, and her godfather (LOVE), and I loved seeing all these old characters that I love so much again. 
I can't say how much I loved getting back into this world, it really felt like The Winner's Curse 2.0, but make it gay. 

Thank you so much to Macmillan and Edelweiss for the eARC. 

Ella Zegarra

Rosie New

Jasmin

Carley Whitehead

Aroa Puerta

Megan During

Mia Bobak

jini

Ruby

Alex (They/Them)

'A doorway to a world of magic, vengeance and romance that will keep you guessing until the last pages' Cassandra Clare, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shadowhunter ChroniclesIntrigue, romance, and magic abound in The Hollow Heart, the heart-stopping conclusion to Marie Rutkoski's Forgotten Gods duology.Nirrim's heart is lost, traded to the god of thieves in order to restore her people's memories of their city's history. Meanwhile, Sid, the person she once loved most, has returned to Herran to take up her duty to the crown.But frightening rumours are growing in the Herrani court: of a new threat rising across the sea, of magic unleashed upon the world, and of a cruel, black-haired queen who can push false memories into your mind, so that you believe your dearest friends to be your enemies.Sid doesn't know that this queen is Nirrim, seeking revenge against a world that has wronged her. Can Sid save Nirrim from herself? And does Nirrim even want to be saved?As blood is shed and war begins, Sid and Nirrim find that it might not matter what they want . . . for the gods have their own plans.*** Praise for Marie Rutkoski ***'Lush, romantic, and powerful. In The Midnight Lie, Marie Rutkoski spins a sensuous tale about awakening to the truth' Malinda Lo, author of Ash'Utterly immersive and gorgeous' Roshani Chokshi, New York Times-bestselling author of The Gilded Wolves

Livia &
The Hollow Heart by Marie Rutkoski

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