The House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland is a mythical book filled with the dirty underside of magic. Iris, Vivi, and Grey return 31 days after their disappearance, transformed from young girls with brown hair to ones with black eyes and ethereal white hair. They live their lives surrounded by their beauty and ability to do strange things.

When Grey goes missing, Vivi and Iris head out to find her and then, the story begins! A story that combines the putrid smell of death with beauty to deliver a journey revolving around the discovery of truth and one's own destiny.

This is a novel worth an hour. It has descriptive writing that will pull you in and create images you would never think of. It incorporates folktales into something terrifyingly real and with a protagonist worth reading about, makes all of this worth your time. AND - the cover is the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen.

Told over the span of Grey's disappearance, House of Hollow has a fast and intricate plot. It creates a journey through the eyes of Iris and what familial bond means to the Hollow siblings. Joining on the journey through a twist of fate is Grey's recent boyfriend, Tyler, and together he, Iris, and Vivi search for Grey finding along the way death, decay, and their past.

Honestly, once again, the plot is fantastic. It contains ambiguity that suits the story creating an enigmatic read with a dash of wonder.

The four main characters are Iris, Vivi, Grey and Tyler (he's kind of on the back burner a bit). Iris is 17 and attempting to live a normal life despite her unique appearance and infamous siblings. Vivi is 19, has a punk-rock attitude and plays bass in a band. Grey, 21 and famous. A supermodel and a fashion designer, an individual who takes the world by the shoulders and doesn't apologise for it and is why her disappearance is so strange.

She is not one to disappear without warning and her lack of communication terrifies Iris and Vivi to search for her. On the way, they run into Tyler who is a supermodel and Grey's current lover/boyfriend/ex-boyfriend who is apathetic about Grey's disappearance and yet, is swept into the search.

What I like about Tyler is that he isn't dead weight. He contributes to the insanity within the plot and does a good job as a side character creating depth into who the Hollow sisters are. All of the characters are fun and the siblings are definitely a bit psychic in how they communicate but that makes sense as this is a magical story and we need a bit of magic.

An absolutely ambiguous ending that fits perfectly into the story. I personally would adore a sequel to this, I don't need any plot, I just want to reenter the world again. A book with a great ending and yes, House of Hollow is worth your time.

House of Hollow was a maze-filled journey where I had no clue how the plot would change next. It was fast-paced, eery, ambiguous, evil and I adored it. This novel has so many layers, like so so many layers from the disappearance of the girls to their strange return, to Grey's disappearance, their Father's skepticism, and the fight with Cate and more that it was like peeling back an onion as each new revelation revealed another one I did not know about. I liked the ambiguous ending; this isn't a happy story, not really and that was okay because it was good.

The descriptive writing of the smells and death growth attest to Sutherland's ability to transport you to the Halfway and the world of the Hollow sisters. Dude, I thought this was such a good book and I am so happy I read it.

Interesting point, Cate probably didn't like to be called mother because she knew her daughters weren't her biological children. Which leads me to ask, how did they end up in the Hollow? Why did Grey slit three children's throats to transport them back to earth and with the brief mention at the end where Grey said she wouldn't let anything happen to them again, I have to assume they were killed and stuck in the Halfway and somehow, they didn't mutate and Grey got them out.

They also could have been mythical creatures, sirens, or something demonic stuck there and waiting for freedom. Does their return to earth make them half-creatures? Or does the human soul kind of absorb most of their monster traits and when they die they can pass freely? Very interesting indeed.

This would be such a great novel to discuss at book club as I barely grazed the surface of the amount of questions this novel gave me. Like, is Tyler really dead or waiting for Iris to return? An ambiguous ending to a beautifully imagined story. I had a great time reading this.