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A review by chromeorange
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton
3.0
Meh.
This book is better understood if you treat it as a young adult novel, with some swearing. For me, that's a huge strike against it since I really do not like YA books.
Like one person in my book club said, it's like the author had an interesting idea but didn't know what to do with it. This is a zombie novel written from the perspective of a crow, primarily with animal characters.
It's a bit hard to explain why I wasn't a huge fan of this one, because the entire book is a bit sub-par and poorly written as opposed to having things I can easily list off. I'll try to categorize a few, though:
1) I didn't really care about the characters, nor were we shown why they were so special (despite repeated claims otherwise)
2) The humor mostly fell flat. Lots of attempts, few successes. (Referring to humans primarily as "mofos" throughout the entire book got obnoxious quick. I did like the cat, but he only got 2 short scenes.)
3) The brief, albeit VERY heavy-handed, moral of the story was basically that humans look at their phones too much.
4) No obstacle really stayed an obstacle very long, so the whole story becomes the crow and his dog walking around accomplishing objectives...like a video game. There's no tension, no build-up, no time to really take a breath and figure out what's going on. I'm still super confused on what the virus does.
5)
That's the big stuff, leaving out a lot of smaller things like plot holes and unresolved plot lines.
Why didn't I rate it lower? Honestly, writing this review makes me question that myself. But, I guess it's the same reason as always: it was entertaining enough to hold my interest. The only thing I was actually impressed by in this book was her idea of "aura" (basically, a vast over-land communication network using bird chirps as repeaters).
In the end, I think she could have done some real cool things with her concept, but it fell super flat, having no real meat or substance to it.
This book is better understood if you treat it as a young adult novel, with some swearing. For me, that's a huge strike against it since I really do not like YA books.
Like one person in my book club said, it's like the author had an interesting idea but didn't know what to do with it. This is a zombie novel written from the perspective of a crow, primarily with animal characters.
It's a bit hard to explain why I wasn't a huge fan of this one, because the entire book is a bit sub-par and poorly written as opposed to having things I can easily list off. I'll try to categorize a few, though:
1) I didn't really care about the characters, nor were we shown why they were so special (despite repeated claims otherwise)
2) The humor mostly fell flat. Lots of attempts, few successes. (Referring to humans primarily as "mofos" throughout the entire book got obnoxious quick. I did like the cat, but he only got 2 short scenes.)
3) The brief, albeit VERY heavy-handed, moral of the story was basically that humans look at their phones too much.
Spoiler
That's what gave them the zombie virus - their phones. (Yes, I do realize that makes zero sense.)4) No obstacle really stayed an obstacle very long, so the whole story becomes the crow and his dog walking around accomplishing objectives...like a video game. There's no tension, no build-up, no time to really take a breath and figure out what's going on. I'm still super confused on what the virus does.
5)
Spoiler
The dog dies in the dumbest, most pointless way possible. He decides to chase after a UPS truck and zombies get him. It's like the author thought it would be a funny joke, but it's not funny and it's a real dissatisfying and disrespectful way to kill off one of the two main characters in the book - on the whim of a joke that serves no plot purpose.That's the big stuff, leaving out a lot of smaller things like plot holes and unresolved plot lines.
Why didn't I rate it lower? Honestly, writing this review makes me question that myself. But, I guess it's the same reason as always: it was entertaining enough to hold my interest. The only thing I was actually impressed by in this book was her idea of "aura" (basically, a vast over-land communication network using bird chirps as repeaters).
In the end, I think she could have done some real cool things with her concept, but it fell super flat, having no real meat or substance to it.