The Hollow Places, by T. Kingfisher

[mrissa]

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Aaaaaaaaaah.

Aaaaaaaaaah yikes yikes yikes this book.

Okay, so it said on the label that it is horror, and I know I am not a big horror reader. But I have been enjoying T. Kingfisher's other books so much, and sometimes when people say horror they really mean dark fantasy, and so I thought, okay, yes, I will read this one!

Friends, it is not dark fantasy. It is horrory horrory horror. It is "I made sure I finished this book with enough time to go read a nice short story about nice things before I had to go to bed" horror. It has Kingfisher's (Ursula Vernon's) engaging, entirely readable voice, and it uses that voice to take the reader to some terrifying and unpleasant places.

The taxidermy is mostly not the creepy part, is a good gauge for this book. It is full of taxidermied animals, and they are mostly okay. But there are dimensional problems in this book, not just issues but problems, and there are willows, or willow-like entities, and it all adds up to quite a bit of aaaaaah.

Kara--known to her immediate circle as Carrot--is living with her uncle Earl in the aftermath of her divorce. He's trying to take care of her. She's trying to take care of him--and when things go pear-shaped, Uncle Earl makes for extremely effective stakes in the story. Must protect Uncle Earl from interdimensional peril is something I was very sold on, yes, we are here for Uncle Earl, Carrot, do the thing. Her relationship with her friend Simon is also extremely well-drawn, and it was exactly these elements that kept me reading a horror novel that does extremely horrory things that aaaaaaaah.

Comments

[phantom_wolfboy]

Is this related to the Twisted Ones? Cause I'm reading that right now and I would call that Horror too.

[anne]

I'm not ever reading this or The Twisted Ones, which makes me sad, but I know my limits.

[sovay]

and there are willows, or willow-like entities

Is it related to Blackwood's "The Willows" in the same way as The Twisted Ones to Machen's "The White People"?

[mrissa]

Yes, explicitly so in the note at the end.

[mrissa]

It appears to me that they are both stand-alone? but I could be missing something because I've never read The Twisted Ones.

[carbonel]

Thank you for the warning. I've been working my way through T. Kingfisher's books in a desultory way, and I will pass on this, because horror.

[tarasacon]

Ditto.

[sovay]

Yes, explicitly so in the note at the end.

That's really interesting.

[abracanabra]

Intriguing! I am guessing it is not nihilistic and miserable in the end?

[mrissa]

It is not! It just goes some pretty creepy places in the middle.

[thanate]

That was my next question, as many other people found The Twisted Ones absolutely terrifying and I was very, "Yeah, wouldn't want to be there, glad I didn't read that as a teenager, but it's Ursula!" about it. (And also, you came down on the side of fluffy romance despite severed heads with Paladin's Grace.) I tend to avoid vintage cosmic horror more for the eye-rolling amount of Drama over heavily foreshadowed fantastical elements than being horrified by it, tho, so that might also be relevant.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to read it and see for myself.

[abracanabra]

Oh, that sounds interesting then!