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
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.
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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
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (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.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Love/Hate relationship, February 4, 2010
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 :)
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