exuberant_crow's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I love the interaction with nature.
S.Ts character and some of the humour felt a bit forced at times but it wasn’t enough to detract from the story. I would love to see a third book.
S.Ts character and some of the humour felt a bit forced at times but it wasn’t enough to detract from the story. I would love to see a third book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
leweylibrary's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Okay so this book is a weird one for me. The first one hit me hard because of some traumatic stuff I was going through at the time. Those things really elevated the book in my mind then when I know otherwise I might have rated it much lower (except for Dennis, I loved and would die for Dennis).
This book is quite different from the first. There's no Dennis, but there's a host of other animals you'd never expect to be living and working together, like crows, owls, tigers, a musk ox, and even a cassowary. The most extraordinary addition is a human, the last MoFo that hasn't been turned into a Changed One. This human, Dee, is being raised by ST, and he loves and is very possessive and protective of her. It's honestly kind of annoying the way he treats her like she's this delicate and even sad creature who can never be a true MoFo which ST insists are the greatest creatures to ever live (🤢).
I had a hard time getting into this one, even though the Changed Ones have become so, so much more gruesome and disgusting than they were in the first book. It wasn't until a little over halfway that this one part hit and I was like 🤯⁉️🙌🔥 This is the part that elevated the book several botches for me and made me not DNF it. Here are my thoughts about this part immediately after reading it:
This author talks a lot in her past book and in this one so far about how powerful and strong females of all species are, but in the beginning it seems like Dee against this. She doesn't seem totally stable, maybe not very smart, pretty helpless innocent or naive. But then this moment happens where she runs off and encounters a changed one. With ST watching, she not only ruthlessly and without hesitation kills the changed one. But she also instinctively figures out that the changed ones are transforming inside of the trees that they have hollowed out and then sics the very creatures that she had the closest bond with onto them to kill them. The birds in Washington had thought that she was their only hope because she could use human weapons, but what ends up being her greatest weapon is her connection to nature and how she's very unlike the old humans in that way. And yet ST still is insistent that she not be violent and an animal, that her human side is the greatest creature that has ever lived. When clearly. Clearly what is needed in this world is not the humans of the past but these new humans like Dee who are connected to nature.
If it weren't for that part, I don't think I could've finished it. I can't say my interest stayed that high up after that point though and I still had a hard time finishing it even though objectively crazy stuff was happening. I just couldn't stay in it. I will say though that Buxton's writing is gorgeous, especially the chapters written by the POV of animals other than ST.
Quotes:
This book is quite different from the first. There's no Dennis, but there's a host of other animals you'd never expect to be living and working together, like crows, owls, tigers, a musk ox, and even a cassowary. The most extraordinary addition is a human, the last MoFo that hasn't been turned into a Changed One. This human, Dee, is being raised by ST, and he loves and is very possessive and protective of her. It's honestly kind of annoying the way he treats her like she's this delicate and even sad creature who can never be a true MoFo which ST insists are the greatest creatures to ever live (🤢).
I had a hard time getting into this one, even though the Changed Ones have become so, so much more gruesome and disgusting than they were in the first book. It wasn't until a little over halfway that this one part hit and I was like 🤯⁉️🙌🔥 This is the part that elevated the book several botches for me and made me not DNF it. Here are my thoughts about this part immediately after reading it:
Spoiler
Comparisons of ST. To the changed ones and Dee, how they're not totally human but not totally animal and how that means different things for each. The impact of technology and screens on the changed ones versus the impact of nature on Dee.This author talks a lot in her past book and in this one so far about how powerful and strong females of all species are, but in the beginning it seems like Dee against this. She doesn't seem totally stable, maybe not very smart, pretty helpless innocent or naive. But then this moment happens where she runs off and encounters a changed one. With ST watching, she not only ruthlessly and without hesitation kills the changed one. But she also instinctively figures out that the changed ones are transforming inside of the trees that they have hollowed out and then sics the very creatures that she had the closest bond with onto them to kill them. The birds in Washington had thought that she was their only hope because she could use human weapons, but what ends up being her greatest weapon is her connection to nature and how she's very unlike the old humans in that way. And yet ST still is insistent that she not be violent and an animal, that her human side is the greatest creature that has ever lived. When clearly. Clearly what is needed in this world is not the humans of the past but these new humans like Dee who are connected to nature.
If it weren't for that part, I don't think I could've finished it. I can't say my interest stayed that high up after that point though and I still had a hard time finishing it even though objectively crazy stuff was happening. I just couldn't stay in it. I will say though that Buxton's writing is gorgeous, especially the chapters written by the POV of animals other than ST.
Quotes:
- I've practiced and told this story--my story, our story--a bajillion times , because we need stories to survive. Story suture up our wounds, stitch us back together. They keep our loved ones alive. They connect us all, like the mycorrhiza, The fungal web through which the trees talk. Like baby sloths or Kevin Bacon or actual bacon. (1)
- Dee was connected--perhaps more so than any MoFo that ever lived--tuning to Aura, dunking her head in saltwater to spy on fish and learn the bubbling nuances of Echo. But her comprehension wasn't perfect. Her calls remained unanswered. It was a party invitation she never received, and though I was glad, since it was safer that she stayed hidden, it was slowly strangling her. Imagine living in a body that didn't live up to the expectations flaunted all around. (38)
- She didn't get to be an animal, but she got to feel caged. (47)
- And if there's one thing I'd learned right then and there about the truth, it's that you can bury it as deeply and asidiously as possible. You can even do it with a heart filled with flame. But one day, that truth will germinate and grow and writhe It's winding way up through black soil, driven by a ravenous yearning for the light. It will come back glowing green. It will sprout pertinacious shoots, clambering towards consciousness. Rising with all the power of the sun. (62)
- Grief can slam into you like a well-waxed window. But it means the ones you love aren't lost or forgotten. They've made a home in your heart, which is the most permanent place of all. (87)
- We must always listen for death to tell its next story. It may sing a twisted song, percussive panting, and final notes. Under song of the Underworld. (176)
- And the best part about Death is that it is all of ours to share. (179)
- Trees would never lose hope, and they would not stop gifting their own vitality in magnetic messages and deep, earthy altruism. (189)
- "It is not your job to change her. It is your job to love her." (237)
- And now, the end is near. I must leave my home
Did I fill my life with color and sense and sound?
Or did I miss the brilliant blue spectacle?
I made a shape for myself,
A shell shape
Tiny, hidden, satisfactory, and safe
But now I am sorry that I didn't stretch to take up the entire ocean
I spent my life hiding.
Come out of your shell. (248) - What kind of hollow living meant you couldn't stretch your wings and screan the song inside of you? (271)
- We were not enough to take on these violent creatures. We were black lace and silken scarves, dangling over barbed wire. (286)
- Survival suits her. Look at how alive she is; doesn't the world seem better with her in it? Supernatural. Super natural. Notice that power in her, those natural instincts. Look at how she wears that fierce glow. She's lit up from the inside by the sun. (306)
- I was glad I was shit at counting. MoFos counted their lives in days and months and years. They got it wrong. Lives aren't measured this way. It's not about how many sunrises we have but how much we fill them with fervor and flight. (329)
- Survival didn't have to be stolen adaptations and horror--it could be friendships. (343)
- I had been wrong to call Dee a flower. Dee was not a flower; she was a fucking weed. Beautiful and tenacious as a tiger. Misunderstood and mislabeled. Spiny and spiraling unapologetically toward life. Flowers live in short, delicate bursts, but Dee had thorns and tangled roots and would fight for every chance at a life. Blackberry bush's darling pride. My, my, what a beautiful and deadly thing she was growing into. (346)
- Family doesn't have to look like you; you can have feathers and scales and scutes. What matters is that you're loved for who you are in your heart. We survive when we are seen. (346)
- Dee strode like something nature had dreamed up in bold brushstrokes. Fruit of the imagination, plucked from a star-kissed sky. She was an evolutionary masterpiece, the little seed that could, eternity's sunrise, forever perched in my soul. She claimed each footfall, as confident as the earth that held her. And I hopped along after her. Just a little thing with feathers. (348-349)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, and Violence
alisonvh's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I enjoyed this book just as much as the prequel. I love that ST’s trauma from the last book plays a big role in this book and that he has to learn to overcome it. As with the first book, listening to this one always gave me a craving for Cheetos
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Alcohol, Violence, and Animal death
aardwyrm's review
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
There probably shouldn't have been a sequel to Hollow Kingdom. I read it. I enjoyed it. But I enjoyed it like I would a Patreon extra with fun character vignettes. ST is fun to listen to. The weird little interludes of the universe are inviting. But spending more time in this universe really exacerbates the ways it doesn't make any damn sense. I'm fine with a soft and stylized worldbuilding, but even the original didn't hold together in terms of basic continuity. Expanding the lore just makes all the nonsense stand out more. And a lot of the silliness of the first book (weird, tortured metaphors about evolution and cancer, sporadic gender essentialism, biological incoherence) starts to rankle after a while. Also, frankly, the damn books both need editors. Jokes, metaphors, and exposition are repeated. The emotional pacing is nonsense; redemptions and falls, reunions and forgiveness all turn on a dime, no lead up, no consequences. Scads of nameless mooks die while the world turns around the main characters. Even the main characters are plot puppets, making their choices often quite against established traits just to move things along. (Why is Ghubari a eugenicist now?)
If you liked the first one, you'll probably like this one, but you might like skipping it and just enjoying the effectiveness of the original remain unsullied in your mind.
If you liked the first one, you'll probably like this one, but you might like skipping it and just enjoying the effectiveness of the original remain unsullied in your mind.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Fatphobia, War, Vomit, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Medical content, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Confinement, Death, Excrement, Grief, and Gore
caseythereader's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Murder, Violence, Alcohol, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Gore, and Grief
katiesendlesstbr's review
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Violence
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