house of hollow by Krystal Sutherland

59th book of 2021

Reading period: July 14th 2021 – July 16th 2021

Summary

Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats. 

Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind. 

As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children. 

The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.

Rating

Review

I was surprised by this book as it’s classified as a horror book, and I’m not a fan of this genre. However, I like this book so much that I’m giving it 4.5 stars.

This story, and it starts with the cover, feels like a dark mystery with a whimsical touch. However, there is something seductive in the story that match the three sisters. Their descriptions make them like unreal and unattainable. They are fictional characters, but they take the shape of a book in our world.

I dived into the book right away, but I wasn’t prepared for all the events happening in the story, especially the ending. It’s a strange conclusion of a strange story. The end is kind of open, but it’s enough, and even if you have other questions, it doesn’t feel like you need the answers.

The only problem I had was the fact that one of the sisters who was important throughout the whole book was put a little on the side at the end.

This book was a great discovery, and when I finished it, it was like waking up from a strange, dark and seductive dream.

Liz.