House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
The Gist
I really wanted to love House of Hollow. It had all the right elements: mysterious sisters, a traumatic backstory, eerie vibes, and a fairytale-turned-nightmare premise. On the surface, it promised something dark and dazzling. But beneath the lush prose and moody aesthetic, there’s not much holding the story together.
The Details
Let’s talk about the writing. Krystal Sutherland clearly knows how to craft sentences, but when every page bursts with metaphors and poetic phrasing, it gets old fast. What starts as lyrical quickly becomes exhausting. The constant references to rot, shadows, and otherworldly beauty pile up. Instead of enhancing the atmosphere, the repetition smothers it. After a while, the words stop creating mood and start creating boredom.
The book also relies too heavily on telling instead of showing. Iris, the protagonist, explains her thoughts and feelings in long, detached narration. We’re told when to be afraid, shocked, or sad—rarely shown. That lack of emotional texture makes everything feel flat, even when the stakes are high. The writing doesn’t trust the reader to connect the dots, so it over-explains every moment.
Pacing suffers too. Scenes loop back on themselves. The same observations about the sisters’ strangeness repeat with little variation. The book reminds us constantly that something is “off,” without ever building meaningful suspense. The plot crawls forward, weighed down by recycled imagery and shallow mystery.
The characters never feel fully formed. Iris feels like a placeholder rather than a person. Grey and Vivi come across more like ideas than sisters. Their dialogue rarely feels natural, and their choices often lack depth or sense. Instead of evolving, the characters exist to serve the atmosphere. They’re there to look unsettling, not to feel real.
By the time the final twist arrived, I didn’t care. It wasn’t shocking—it was overdue. The story dragged for so long that the ending lost its impact. I finished the book out of obligation, not interest.
The Verdict
If you love dreamy, overwritten prose and don’t mind sacrificing plot and character development, maybe House of Hollow will work for you. But if you’re looking for depth, pacing, or anything truly haunting, this story falls short. For me, it was all style, no substance—a beautifully wrapped box with nothing inside.
