Books4Tomorrow: REVIEW: "HOLLOWLAND"

“HOLLOWLAND”

(The Hollows, book 1)

by Amanda Hocking

REVIEWED BY: Books4Tomorrow

OVERVIEW

"This is the way the world ends - not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door."

Nineteen-year-old Remy King is on a mission to get across the wasteland left of America, and nothing will stand in her way - not violent marauders, a spoiled rock star, or an army of flesh-eating zombies.

REVIEW

I started reading “Hollowland” in bed one night, and 02:30 AM the next morning I was still reading! I simply couldn’t put it down. So many things I loved about this book; where, oh where shall I start?

No other book has ever grabbed my interest from the very first sentence the way this one did. As a horror fan who is thrilled by post-apocalyptic zombie themed books, “Hollowland” hit the mark spot on. But these aren’t your usual brain-dead, brain- devouring kind of zombies. Noooooo, these are cunningly clever, dangerous zombies who can move at lightning fast speed. Oh, of course they love eating brains, but that’s not where their appetites end. Pretty scary, huh?

Apart from the zombie factor, there is a lot more to this book than merely running for your life. A dead, deserted and decaying Las Vegas; the most loveable, zombie-eating lion you’ll only get to meet in this book; believable and likeable characters; a freaky religious cult, marauders, an apocalypse which will make you happy to get back to reality once you can tear yourself away from this amazing book, and a tiny side-order of romance, are only a few of the elements which makes “Hollowland” an unforgettable experience. Yes, I say experience, because even though the plot moves at a rapid pace, the suspense is really what drives this story and keeps the reader glued to the pages. The superb writing created an atmosphere of dread which fed my fear for the characters’ lives. Every chapter – from the first to the last - was charged with foreboding and anxiety, but the author also deftly spun an underlying thread of hope for the reader to hold on to.

I have a love-hate relationship with cliffhanger endings, but I couldn’t have imagined a better way to have ended this book than the manner in which the author did. I’m burning with curiosity to see what happens next with the survivors in book two, but I also feel that a lot of questions were answered in this book and loose ends were tied up nicely at the end.

This is beyond a doubt an addictive read and I now understand why Amanda Hocking’s books have sold millions of copies. I can’t wait to read them all!