The Hollow (Hollow Trilogy) [Hardcover]

Jessica Verday (Author)

Book Description

Series: Hollow Trilogy | Publication Date: September 1, 2009

When Abbey's best friend, Kristen, vanishes at the bridge near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, everyone else is all too quick to accept that Kristen is dead and rumors fly that her death was no accident. Abbey goes through the motions of mourning her best friend, but privately, she refuses to believe that Kristen is really gone. It only makes things worse that everyone now treats Abbey like either a freak show or a charity case. Thank goodness for Caspian, the gorgeous and mysterious boy who shows up out of nowhere at Kristen's funeral, and keeps reappearing in Abbey's life. Caspian clearly has secrets of his own, but he's the only person who makes Abbey feel normal again...but also special.

Just when Abbey starts to feel that she might survive all this, she learns a secret that makes her question everything she thought she knew about her best friend. How could Kristen have kept silent about so much? And could this secret have led to her death? As Abbey struggles to understand Kristen's betrayal, she uncovers a frightening truth that nearly unravels her -- one that will challenge her emerging love for Caspian, as well as her own sanity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In the wake of The Twilight Saga, another supernatural romance rears its ugly head, this time taking on Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. After the death of her best friend, Abbey feels abandoned and alone. She tries distracting herself by creating perfumes, but true distraction comes in the form of Caspian, the "total hottie" she meets in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Abbey quickly falls head over heels in love with Caspian, although she struggles with his mysterious and elusive demeanor. Just as things seem like they are back to normal, Abbey makes two discoveries: she finds Kristen's secret diary that reveals she was hiding something from Abbey, and she learns Caspian's true identity. On the verge of a breakdown, Abbey's world slowly begins to unravel when she realizes Sleepy Hollow may hold more truth than legend.

At first glance, Verday's book appears to be overflowing with fabulous potential. The stunning cover art and legendary premise lure readers into thinking this hefty tome is worth the time investment, but the story line drags, disappoints and quickly falls flat. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the obvious catalyst for the story, but other than the setting, Abbey's obsession with the tale, and the quotes that open each chapter, it is unclear as to how the legend relates until the last few chapters. Unfortunately readers might not feel compelled to stick it out to the very end after reading countless pages describing Abbey's mundane activies like mixing scents, baking cookies, organizing her uncle's office or working on a science fair project. Although the book will definitely sell itself, it is not well written and readers may be disappointed. This scheduled trilogy may be a series to pass up if budgets are tight.

----VOYA April 2010

From the Back Cover

     "I reached out and touched the casket lid. It was cold. So cold that I immediately snatched my hand away. It almost felt like it had burned me.

     I just stood there. I couldn't bring myself to say anything...not out loud, at least. But a thousand thoughts raged inside my head, while a thousand feelings raged inside my heart.

 

     The weather mimicked my emotions. A fierce wind rattled by, howling in outrage. The edges of the plastic awning flapped angrily against the aluminum poles holding it up and made a horrible rining sound. Even the rain pounded harder, lashing out its bitterness.

 

     And that was when I felt someone watching me."

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; First Edition edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416978933
• ISBN-13: 978-1416978930
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (126 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #603,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jessica Verday is the bestselling author of The Hollow Trilogy, first published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse. She wrote the first draft of THE HOLLOW by hand, using thirteen spiral-bound notebooks and fifteen black pens. The first draft of THE HAUNTED took fifteen spiral-bound notebooks and twenty black pens. THE HIDDEN took too many notebooks and too many pens to count. Find out more at jessicaverday.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars ".. This sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow.", September 22, 2009

By 

Snow White (Orange County) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hollow (Hollow Trilogy) (Hardcover)

When I received The Hollow in the mail I nearly threw my other reading selections aside, their bookmarks noting my reality of being rather far from completion, and I happily welcomed this exciting, inviting take on an old classic.

You are greeted by obviously beautiful cover art, and a well chosen font style but then you open the rather large book to see nearly 500 pages of a much larger then necessary font.(Oh, the waste of paper!) The first chapter in about 8 pages, but it takes less then two minutes to read... it's just a little unnecessary.(Even if it's aimed at younger 'tweens' they can still read a more moderately sized type.)

Any-who, I finished The Hollow in two long, uninspired days to be left feeling entirely disappointed and with more then a few question marks looming overhead.

Abbey and Kristen have a strange obsession with their hometown, Sleepy Hollow and the famous Legend that is derived from it. Which ultimately leaves them unpopular, and painfully strange.

When Abbey meets Caspian, a dark, mysterious brooding type in the cemetery she frequents, a rather alarming crush occurs, or as we are to believe a relationship is formed. Which of course works out beautifully to help distract our misfit Abbey from the recent death of her best and only friend, Kristen.

Our heroine, Abbey is original sure, in that archetypal 'loner-girl' kind of way that is customary to these human/supernatural relationship central tales. Although I will say that her passion of creating perfumes was rather intriguing,... at first, that quickly became tired with her prolonged explanations of their individual scents and composition.
Author Tip: Don't focus so long on certain things that you cannot control. Reading a book cannot convey real scent, the attempt at creating a real sensation is nice, but not possible. Overall it becomes redundant, then frustrating.. I would love to be able to smell Kristen's very original perfume, or Caspian's that smells like delicious snicker-doodle cookies, but hey this is reality and not smell-o-vision book edition.

Which isn't to allude that I dislike description, it's just that overall I find, Verday hasn't quite grasped the most enjoyable way for the reader to really see her stories. Pages and pages focus on mundane tasks that have no real place or importance in the plot and aren't even slightly entertaining. Abbey working for her uncle, Abbey walking through her cemetery routine, Abbey cooking, Abbey making perfume, Abbey whining over her non-relationship with Caspian, Abbey whining about how much she misses Kristen....

Really, Abbey just does a lot of whining.

Not to mention, Caspian isn't very drool-worthy. He seems completely indifferent to Abbey most of the time, and by the end I find myself almost forgetting anything he's done only chapters before and even worse caring if their 'relationship' will work out.

Maybe I'm just hypercritical because it's been a few years since high school for me, maybe I've crossed over that bridge and can't really connect because that part of my life is over... but I enjoy plenty of young adult novels without feeling so completely void of any and all REAL emotion. That tends to be the best part of these types of stories, their ability to transport us all back to a different point in our lives, with sweeping emotions and stereotypical but entertaining characters and situations.


The most upsetting element of this whole thing too, the climax and resolution are thrown together so sloppily in the last few chapters it all barely makes sense. It really is a great idea, it just needed a lot more work.... and a real plot.

Oh, and I still can't find a moral to the story.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Marred with darkness but still pale in places, October 12, 2009

By 

- Kasia S. (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Hollow (Hollow Trilogy) (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

The Hollow was a good read, but it wasn't an amazing read...I managed to plunge in and read it in two days, but the next morning I couldn't even recall the ending precisely and had to open the book and glance at it again, just to make sure the tale got some closure in my head. The tale is about a young girl named Abbey who's best friend has gone missing, suddenly half her world is gone and she must somehow survive it one day at a time and get though dark feelings of sadness, loneliness and a confusing budding new romance. She meets a strange boy at the cemetery, which is one of her favorite places, and enjoys his sudden interest in her persona. Too bad that the romance isn't as hot as it's advertised, if anything I never found Caspian to be anything worth thinking twice about, other than being nice/polite he wasn't much else. It felt more like an unreturned crush that took up the bulk of the tale.

Initially an empty casket is burred considering the disappearance, but later Kristen's body is found in the river, reality sets in, she's really gone...to make matters worse, Abbey finds Kristen's secret diary which is completely different than her regular diary, why keep both I don't know but such was Kristen. Upon reading it, Abbey finds that Kristen has been very busy right up until she disappeared. That part of the book was very interesting, sadly not much time was mentioned about Kristen and her secrets, Abbey visited the grave and did sweet things in her friend's memory but the mystery and clues of her disappearance and death, died about two thirds of the way into the story! I hope the rest of it is included in the next novel or the author really did a bad job of handling the main plot. Abbey's romance with Caspian was the worst part of the story, I found it a bit boring and the ending wasn't any better. Overall the book was fun but nothing worth shouting about, read it, enjoy it but don't stress over plot holes, there are too many to count. Cute teen book but the mysterious haunting and happenings felt way too juvenile even for a young adult book, more like something from a grade school novel.

- Kasia S.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love/Hate relationship, February 4, 2010

By 

S. Walker "Wicked Walker Reviews" (Gainesville, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hollow (Hollow Trilogy) (Hardcover)

I am so torn about this book, I have a definite love-hate thing with it. First, let me say the that cover is amazing and actually depicts a part in the book, for the most part anyway. When I first started reading this book I was sucked in and lost some sleep getting through the first half of the book trying the answer the questions of who Caspian was and what was going on. That became the problem of the 2nd half was that I felt like there was a lot of "filler" type info that wasn't necessary for the story and we were not finding out anything more until the very end of the book. At 544 pages, I think it could be cut down somewhat taking the unnecessary stuff out that really has no relation to the story being told.


The story overall is good with romance and a touch of paranormal. The main character, Abbey, is likable for the most part but has times being a spoiled brat and whiny that can get on your nerves, you want to scream, ENOUGH ALREADY...MOVE ON. The plot is a little weak and meandering at times but overall I did enjoy the book and really look forward to the next installment of the trilogy that is due out in 2010. See what I mean...love-hate :)


I found the note about the author very interesting, that she wrote The Hollow's first draft by hand using 13 spiral notebooks and 15 black pens. She is also writing the 2nd book in this fashion. Do I even know how to write one page in cursive anymore? Just give me my laptop, thank you :)