Reviews

The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson

matasatan's review

5.0

Okay. I will never want to eat mushrooms and look at roots the same way again

kindlebabe's review

4.0

This was my first book by Andy Davidson and I can’t wait to read more from this author. This book was one of my favorites from 2023. This book was everything I hoped that it would be when I started it—I am a reader who does not read reviews or the burbs because I love going into books of authors new to me blind. If you love a good gothic horror aesthetic then this book is the one for you! This book gives all the creepy horror feels that I love most!!! We follow a woman and her son in this story and they are living on her grandfathers property in Georgia but this property and home standing on it start to have sinister things happening.

You begin to wonder if there is something more going on in the land under their feet. The story is told in two timelines which I loved with lots of backstory and history throughout. The attention to detail that the author went through with each and every character in this book was well appreciated. The characters in this book felt very real and in ways you could relate to some parts of them in one way or another. This book is an easy favorite of 2023 and I have added others by the author to my TBR.

jabioks55's review

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

Best way I can describe it is a haunted house book with "It" themes, set in the south instead of Maine. Slow, emotional horror with some tense and fast body horror sprinkled in

rockhoppingpenguin's review

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

poisonwhiskeyy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.0

carlys987's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Not my favorite thing ever - I think I was just waiting for the horror to go that extra mile and hit, ya know? But it was enjoyable all the same. 

sare1125's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Murder

Minor: Animal death

kayjay666's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

kbrown's review

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

erikbergstrom's review

3.0

At first, I thought Andy Davidson was right on the same track with his breakout, "In the Valley of the Sun". The writing was crisp and perfect for dirty southern gothic/noir. Davidson is a really, really good writer regardless of story—he has the innate talent to turn a sentence into something you enjoy going back over. I also really enjoyed the mother/son relationship that mimicked the one in his debut.

But then... it started to get a little bit like "Boatman's Daughter", which was a disappointing follow-up for me. Meandered a little, like it had lost its focus and remained content to see-saw between the 1920s and 1980s timelines. A story eventually came to the fore in the final 100 pages, when the real antagonist, Wade, showed up.

I'm not a huge fan of plant-based horror (or burgers for that matter, lol!) but this was all right. Kind of like if A24 remade the seminal 1981 horror classic out of Canada, "The Pit".