Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

16 reviews

bookishtraveler's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I am not a big horror fan but I will give anything that T. Kingfisher writes a try.  "The Hollow Places" starts as funny, fast, and quirky as any of her books but drags in the middle and then finishes with a strong, nail-biting ending.  As always, I loved the characters in this book.  The themes were also on point--divorce, family, returning to childhood home, relationships, and self worth.  There was just something a little off about the logic of the plot (even in a fantasy horror world there is a logic and rules that should be consistent)  I also figured out what the cause of the horror was long before the hero and it was frustrating "watching" the hero be so slow in figuring it out and denying along the way.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

kylieqrada's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

So I’ve pretty much narrowed my horror taste down to what I would classify as social horror and snarky horror. Rachel Harrison and T. Kingfisher are going to be my go-tos for the latter. So fun, so creepy, so relatable, so wild. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Death, and Blood

Minor: Drug use, Infidelity, and Alcohol

aylasultana's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use and Infidelity

hchandler1092's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Definitely a good, creepy book I would recommend to others. It was a touch slow at the very beginning but got interesting pretty quickly. Not super flowery or excessively wordy in the prose which I personally appreciate.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Torture, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Drug use

batesbarb's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

T. Kingfisher is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. Her POV characters tend to be very relatable to me, with an absorbing and engaging voice. Much like her other horror books, this one kept me up too late a few nights running because the creeping flashes of something very wrong at the periphery kept me too scared to put it down until there was a break in the story. 

I will say that this book had the same issue that I've had with most of her horror stories, which is that they're incredibly tense and frightening until the last quarter. Once the main character (and the audience) see and interact with the monsters, they're never anywhere near as scary as what we've made up from the glimpses out of the corner of our eyes. It's a common problem in horror, but I think it's a bit amplified here because Kingfisher is so good at  building and escalating the early tension of the imagination and the search that the falloff once we have an actual, visible problem to face is a bit more extreme. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Gore, and Alcohol

spineofthesaurus's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Gaslighting

Minor: Incest and Cannibalism

anntharai's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Violence, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, and Blood

Minor: Infidelity

midnightgremlin's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, and Vomit

Minor: Drug use, Infidelity, Blood, and Cannibalism

mandkips's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Gore

Moderate: Animal death, Death, and Blood

Minor: Drug use and Infidelity

_thelitlibrarian's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

3.00 stars
-
TW: Body Horror, Gore, Death, Animal Death, Child Death, Blood, Drug Use, Infidelity. 
-
"Does your uncle know there's a portal to Narnia in his museum?"

After a rough divorce, Kara relocates her entire life back home to help out at her uncle's museum of curiosities. While her uncle is out for surgery a hole suddenly appears out of the blue, leaving Kara to explore the unknown with the next-door barista, Simon. This hole leads to a bunker where they discover a dead body, as the two get more curious about this world, they'll soon realize that some things are better left untouched.

I would categorize this more of a fantasy and not a horror. Yes, there are some spooky moments, but this focuses on a world that links to endless possible universes. I really wanted to fall in love with the book, I really enjoyed the plot and the unique concept (hello fear of the unknown), but it was a tad repetitive and fell under common horror stereotypes (gay best friend, the main character doing dumb things). What I love about T. Kingfisher's books is the inclusion of humor in such creepy moments, this is often done with the banter between Kara and Simon. I found the ending a bit predictable, throughout the book there's constantly referencing to one of the artifacts in the museum and I instantly knew that it played a bigger picture in the story than just a museum curiosity. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gore, Infidelity, and Blood