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caidyn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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? Yes
4.5
Wow, this was an explosive conclusion to this series. It's very different from the first book, something that took me a bit to adjust to. Multiple perspectives and a very different, more violent, tone. But am excellent read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Sexism
orchidd's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Gaslighting and War
angstifies's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
honestly so disappointing, this sequel should’ve focused on actually being a sequel not to give content about the other series the author wrote. i wasn’t interested in anything that was going on most of the time, i’m so sad because i truly loved the first book and now i wish i had read it as a stand-alone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, and War
Minor: Death of parent
yvonne_cl'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Blood
Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Murder, Lesbophobia, Abandonment, and War
Minor: Death, Gun violence, and Death of parent
readingpicnic's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
beforeviolets's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
TW: blood, violence, decapitation (onscreen), war, mental torture, gun violence, attempted murder, forced drug use (past, offscreen), addiction (past), death, described corpses, emotional abuse, poisoning, colonization, self-harm (a character pierces their own ears), amputation (past, mention), alcohol (mention)
My thoughts on The Hollow Heart are hard to express, because though I enjoyed the book and thought there were a lot of beautiful things about it, I felt that it really disappointed me as a sequel.
Contrary to The Midnight Lie, this book uses multiple POV's, a choice I really enjoyed. Not only did we experience the POV's of our two main characters, we also had a third, omnipotent POV that helped add a mysterious narrative and gave Rutkoski more room to manipulate our understanding of the world,
both past and present. It offered more wiggle room to play around with timeline and connections in a way that I felt was really unique and made the work more godpunk in genre, which I'll never say no to.
But as much as I love Marie Rutkoski's descriptive writing and as much as I adore the characters and the world of this series, the sequel just fell short for me. There was a powerful, heartwrenching, almost Greek Mythology-style tale filled with conversations of heroism and love and mortality built into the framework of the story but seemed to only start about 75% of the way through. To be given such a beautiful tale only in the last handful of pages really just felt like a waste, and by that point, I had been waiting so long for the plot to kick in that the story had lost almost all of the stakes and all of my interest. I really wish those last pages had been stretched out and expanded upon throughout the whole narrative instead of jammed in at the end.
And all the elements and details that I loved so dearly in The Midnight Lie (the romance, the banter, the characterization) were just completely discarded in this book. Part of it made sense for the character arcs but it mostly just made me feel like the heart of the story itself was hollow. The romance was no longer believable, the story was disjointed and anti-climactic, and the characters felt lackluster when they had previously captured my heart.
In the art world, when making comics or graphic novels, there's a rule that states that you should draw the joints of a figure above or below a frame, but never right on the edge of it, so that our brains can subconsciously continue the image offscreen. If you draw the joint right at the edge of the frame, it disrupts the visual flow of the body and causes the viewer's brain to stop the image at the joint. It's jarring and subconsciously difficult to process, and I think that's exactly what Rutkoski did. With the two books, she sliced the plot right in the middle, right at the joint, in a way that disrupts the flow and makes it difficult to be able to connect the two stories.
EDIT: My friend El and I JUST figured out (while writing this review) that this duology is a spin-off of one of Rutkoski's other works. With this knowledge, I'm realizing that the reason that I found so much of this book confusing or wasteful or empty in terms of plot was actually because Rutkoski just spent a large chunk of this book retconning her other series. (This required a lot of recaps and info dumps that seemed useless to wrapping up this duology.) To me, especially considering this series is never mentioned to be connected to the other in terms of marketing or otherwise, that is such an act of disrespect to the story of The Midnight Lie. Sid and Nirrim deserve their own full and complete narrative, not for their story to be coopted as a way to fix the issues in Rutkoski's former work. And now this series is the one to contain glaring issues that need to be fixed since much of it was dedicated to telling another story. Truly such a failure on the author's part.
My thoughts on The Hollow Heart are hard to express, because though I enjoyed the book and thought there were a lot of beautiful things about it, I felt that it really disappointed me as a sequel.
Contrary to The Midnight Lie, this book uses multiple POV's, a choice I really enjoyed. Not only did we experience the POV's of our two main characters, we also had a third, omnipotent POV that helped add a mysterious narrative and gave Rutkoski more room to manipulate our understanding of the world,
both past and present. It offered more wiggle room to play around with timeline and connections in a way that I felt was really unique and made the work more godpunk in genre, which I'll never say no to.
But as much as I love Marie Rutkoski's descriptive writing and as much as I adore the characters and the world of this series, the sequel just fell short for me. There was a powerful, heartwrenching, almost Greek Mythology-style tale filled with conversations of heroism and love and mortality built into the framework of the story but seemed to only start about 75% of the way through. To be given such a beautiful tale only in the last handful of pages really just felt like a waste, and by that point, I had been waiting so long for the plot to kick in that the story had lost almost all of the stakes and all of my interest. I really wish those last pages had been stretched out and expanded upon throughout the whole narrative instead of jammed in at the end.
And all the elements and details that I loved so dearly in The Midnight Lie (the romance, the banter, the characterization) were just completely discarded in this book. Part of it made sense for the character arcs but it mostly just made me feel like the heart of the story itself was hollow. The romance was no longer believable, the story was disjointed and anti-climactic, and the characters felt lackluster when they had previously captured my heart.
In the art world, when making comics or graphic novels, there's a rule that states that you should draw the joints of a figure above or below a frame, but never right on the edge of it, so that our brains can subconsciously continue the image offscreen. If you draw the joint right at the edge of the frame, it disrupts the visual flow of the body and causes the viewer's brain to stop the image at the joint. It's jarring and subconsciously difficult to process, and I think that's exactly what Rutkoski did. With the two books, she sliced the plot right in the middle, right at the joint, in a way that disrupts the flow and makes it difficult to be able to connect the two stories.
EDIT: My friend El and I JUST figured out (while writing this review) that this duology is a spin-off of one of Rutkoski's other works. With this knowledge, I'm realizing that the reason that I found so much of this book confusing or wasteful or empty in terms of plot was actually because Rutkoski just spent a large chunk of this book retconning her other series. (This required a lot of recaps and info dumps that seemed useless to wrapping up this duology.) To me, especially considering this series is never mentioned to be connected to the other in terms of marketing or otherwise, that is such an act of disrespect to the story of The Midnight Lie. Sid and Nirrim deserve their own full and complete narrative, not for their story to be coopted as a way to fix the issues in Rutkoski's former work. And now this series is the one to contain glaring issues that need to be fixed since much of it was dedicated to telling another story. Truly such a failure on the author's part.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Colonisation
Moderate: Self harm, Murder, and War
Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use
amabel_xo's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
inspiring
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? Yes
5.0
It’s truly an amazing book
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Minor: Sexism, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Lesbophobia, and War
olivialandryxo's review against another edition
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
After thoroughly enjoying The Midnight Lie, I was so excited to dive into The Hollow Heart. Unfortunately, I found it incredibly underwhelming, and even considering DNFing more than once. I pushed through because of how much I liked the first book, thinking it had to get better. And while it did, marginally, it never managed to achieve the same levels of intrigue, emotion and romance as its predecessor.
The slow pacing and long chapters made reading this feel like an uphill battle. At risk of sounding dramatic, it was sort of a Sisyphus situation—every time I would start to get invested, an especially long, boring chapter would ruin that for me. I shudder to think of what this book would’ve been without Sid’s chapters; I love her to pieces, 10/10, my favorite character, book girlfriend material. In all seriousness, her narration was what saved the story for me.
The girls were reunited in the final third, making it somewhat but not entirely better than the first two thirds. What really could’ve upped my opinion is a more detailed ending, because I feel like I was cheated. Not nearly enough sapphic content or story resolution, in my opinion.
Honestly, this might be one of my most disappointing reads of the year, alongside Kingdom of the Wicked. Whereas KOTW was a case of a book not living up to internet hype, The Hollow Heart was a sequel that I don’t think lived up to the first book, and that, I think, is so very sad. :((
Representation
The slow pacing and long chapters made reading this feel like an uphill battle. At risk of sounding dramatic, it was sort of a Sisyphus situation—every time I would start to get invested, an especially long, boring chapter would ruin that for me. I shudder to think of what this book would’ve been without Sid’s chapters; I love her to pieces, 10/10, my favorite character, book girlfriend material. In all seriousness, her narration was what saved the story for me.
The girls were reunited in the final third, making it somewhat but not entirely better than the first two thirds. What really could’ve upped my opinion is a more detailed ending, because I feel like I was cheated. Not nearly enough sapphic content or story resolution, in my opinion.
Honestly, this might be one of my most disappointing reads of the year, alongside Kingdom of the Wicked. Whereas KOTW was a case of a book not living up to internet hype, The Hollow Heart was a sequel that I don’t think lived up to the first book, and that, I think, is so very sad. :((
Representation
- sapphic protagonist of color
- biracial lesbian love interest
- sapphic romance
- queer side character
- side characters of color
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Blood, and Murder
Most of the murders in this book are done by beheading, which is mentioned and briefly described, but never in graphic detail.deadbookishsociety's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
2nd book to the midnight lie series and it was okay for me , comparing it to the first book where the author brilliantly merged the fantasy world with the one we live in to give a raw and gruesome view of how classism and divisions in the society have led to the exploitation of people who are considered as ' lesser ' and how no one really knows when , who and how those rules and boundaries were made , this one wasn't quite about to grab my attention the same way .
Starting of with Nirrim who I loved in the firat book watching her grown to the person she became , I really felt detached from her in this one, i know there were reasons for what she did but still her character lacked the charm she has in the midnight lie . Sid on the other hand was the only character who kept me going, her story and the way she not only dealt with whatever was going on in her life , I felt like she became the main character by the end of it all leaving behind nirrim . Her chapters and pov was all I was looking forward to .
And the end it felt incomplete in a way , it yet again the only way it could have ended but it somehow didn't feel like it , considering how both the books were 400 pages long it was too short for a fantasy duology and everything by the end felt rushed.
Anyway this book was an okay read , I'll still recommend it to people who live fast paced , easily world building and maybe corruption arcs .
Thank you netgalley and hodder & stoughton for providing me an arc for this book
Starting of with Nirrim who I loved in the firat book watching her grown to the person she became , I really felt detached from her in this one, i know there were reasons for what she did but still her character lacked the charm she has in the midnight lie . Sid on the other hand was the only character who kept me going, her story and the way she not only dealt with whatever was going on in her life , I felt like she became the main character by the end of it all leaving behind nirrim . Her chapters and pov was all I was looking forward to .
And the end it felt incomplete in a way , it yet again the only way it could have ended but it somehow didn't feel like it , considering how both the books were 400 pages long it was too short for a fantasy duology and everything by the end felt rushed.
Anyway this book was an okay read , I'll still recommend it to people who live fast paced , easily world building and maybe corruption arcs .
Thank you netgalley and hodder & stoughton for providing me an arc for this book
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, and Murder