The Hollow by Jessica Verday Review

Book: The Hollow

Author: Jessica Verday

Source: online at PulseIt

Summary:

When Abbey's best friend, Kristin, vanishes at the bridge near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, everyone else is all too quick to accept that Kristen is dead...and rumors fly that her death was no accident. Abbey goes through the motions of mourning her best friend, but privately, she refuses to believe that Kristen is really gone. Then she meets Caspian, the gorgeous and mysterious boy who shoes up out of nowhere at Kristen's funeral, and keeps reappearing in Abbey's life. Caspian clearly has secrets of his own, but he's the only person who makes Abbey feel normal again...but also special.

Just when Abbey starts to feel that she might survive all this, she learns a secret that makes her question everything she thought she knew about her best friend. How could Kristen have kept silent about so much? And could this secret have led to her death? As Abbey struggles to understand Kristen's betrayal, she uncovers a frightening truth that nearly unravels her--one that will challenge her emerging love for Caspian, as well as her own sanity.

Review: This is a difficult book for me to review. First, I do not know if I can be entirely fair to the novel, just based off the fact that I read it online (courtesy of the fantastic Pulse It Program--which everyone should check out if they don't mind reading books online), and I spent a majority of the book being frustrated whenever the pages wouldn't load. (Darn my internet connection!)

That aside, The Hollow was...interesting. The beginning was a little blah for me, but as the book went on, I became more interested. This book was great at grasping my attention at points. Caspian's appearance in the book gets things moving, as well as when Abbey finds a secret(s) that Kristen hid from her. There were great points of intrigue, interest, but there were also spots where I didn't understand why it was in the book.

Abbey was, despite her sadness from losing her best friend, a great protagonist. I could relate to her, and I wanted to go make perfume after reading this (but then I remembered I'm horrible with things like that, I'd probably spill everything!).

Highlights: As sad as this sounds (and I don't mean it in a bad way), the end. We finally, finally, learn what's up with Caspian, and few more more secrets that made me go "Really? How awesome!". I wish it had all been thrown out there earlier, but I guess I'll be looking forward to the next book to see how it all plays out. I also loved how in the beginning of each chapter (or almost every chapter), there were little quotes from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Also, that cover is absolutely awesome.

Oh! And I love Caspian's talents. He's a pretty talented guy, and I enjoyed the descriptions of his gifts to Abbey.

Lowlights: Pointless descriptions of Abbey doing this and that. It wasn't relevant to the story. And sadly, I could not read the entire epilogue, so I have no clue what happens there. Does anyone know? Email me if you do! (Seriously, email me, because still as of June 2010, I don't know!!)

In the end, I think I was overly observant of flaws, just because of my annoyance with the page-loading issue. I think this is one book I should just go buy, and read again (because then I can turn the page instantly!).

Rating: