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dargan18's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic
traciereads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Self harm, and Abandonment
Minor: Alcohol
jvbook_reader's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, and Gore
Minor: Sexual content and Excrement
kriyon's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Gore
3martini's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Blood, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Drug abuse, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
theaceofpages's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Gore
Moderate: Cursing
kwalker314's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Body horror and Gore
Moderate: Animal death and Death
Minor: Cursing
beccapedia_'s review against another edition
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.5
When this book was recommended to me, the premise immediately had me hooked. A post-apocalyptic sci-fi featuring a crow named Shit Turd and his loyal dumb dog? Are you kidding? Sign me up. But, I feel like the idea was better than the execution.
Hollow Kingdom brings a unique perspective and much-needed twist to the zombie genre, but it holds itself back with unnecessarily excessive descriptive prose, characters that are hard to connect to, and critical plot points that just don't make sense.
I'm typically all for flowery prose-- it's my favorite. Most of my 5 star reads are written with some degree of flowery prose, but it usually fits the genre and is enough that it contributes some emotion to the story, but short enough that it doesn't pull away from the narrative. Hollow Kingdom took purple prose to the next level, and it felt additionally out of place because of it's genre. I found myself skipping whole paragraphs of the book regularly because it was just a wall of description with no substance to the plot, using the biggest words it could possibly find to describe a simple object. I nearly DNF'd 30% into the book because I found it such a slog to get through. Thankfully, the plot picked up enough that I was able to tolerate it, but this was an issue throughout the whole book.
The main character, S.T., was hard to connect to or care about. In his defense, I can't really relate to a crow in a zombie apocalypse, but I should be able to relate to his feelings of grief, loss of identity, and desire for a purpose. But, those feelings were often surface level or moved past quickly, and so I felt it difficult to care. We don't really get to know the other characters well enough to attach to them, either. There was minor character development, but it didn't make a huge impact. Honestly, I felt myself looking forward to the few short chapters we got from other characters because I found them far more interesting and compelling than S.T.'s perspective.
Finally, there were some plot points that regularly had me going "... Huh?". I feel like I'm usually pretty willing to make crazy leaps in logic for sci-fi and fantasy-- it's fiction, it doesn't have to be realistic. But it does have to make sense within the narrative. Most of the confusion came from the virus itself: where it came from, how it worked, and why it was there.
I understand the characters are all animals and can't possibly really know what's going on at a molecular level and explain it reasonably to the audience. If the author had just left it at "We're animals, we don't know", I would have been okay with that. But, they went out of their way to deliver that information through a talking parrot and it just... It didn't make sense, and it still doesn't, to me at least.
My final issue with the plot is this:
The book wasn't all bad. It was genuinely funny at times (I particularly enjoyed the running joke about squirrels). The communication systems of Aura, Echo, and Web were creative and thought out. My favorite parts of the book were the short chapters we got from some of the other animals-- specifically Genghis Cat and Angus the Highland Cow. Those chapters were witty, had amazing voice, and gave that really unique perspective I was looking for. I loved them.
Overall, though, it was okay. Unique and funny. I understood the points it was trying to make, I just don't think it was well-executed in getting there. I have the second book, Feral Creatures, but I honestly don't know if I'll read it. I might, just to say I did and to see if it clears any of the issues up from the first book, but seeing as it's longer than the first and I barely made it through... Probably not.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, and Blood
Moderate: Cursing, Violence, Grief, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Drug use and Suicide
leguinstan's review
Unfortunately, I felt that the humor got old really quickly. At a certain point I found myself getting more excited about the sporadic chapters from the perspective of other animals since they provided a break from S. T.'s incessantly vulgar roasting of other characters. The personality of the animals are just as colorful as S. T.'s personality and they were funny in their own unique ways.
Like I previously said, S. T. made me laugh at the start but I just don't think he's 300+ pages worth of funny and the plot was not nearly gripping enough to make the comedic loss worth it. More specifically, S. T.'s main objective kept changing so much that the overall plot feels unfocused. It's hard to get invested when you have to keep reminding yourself what the characters are currently trying to achieve.
The final nail in the coffin was the moment when one of the characters warns S. T. & co that
It's such a shame it didn't work out because I think the author is very imaginative and talented (especially when it comes to narrative voice!). Perhaps it would've done better as a novella instead of a full-length novel?
Graphic: Animal death and Cursing
Moderate: Gore, Violence, and Excrement
Minor: Rape
rape: so there's a scene in the book where a pack of male dogshexie88's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Moderate: Animal death, Cursing, Death, and Gore
Minor: Sexual content