House of Hollow
by Krystal Sutherland
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons
on April 6, 2021
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Horror
Length: 304 pages
Ages: 12 - 17 years

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Literary Awards:
Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Young Adult Novel (2021)
ITW Thriller Award Nominee for Young Adult Novel (2022)


Synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can't quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats. 

Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister's ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind. 

As Iris retraces Grey's last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children. 

The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to the understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous--and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years. 



My Thoughts:

Dark fantasy for young adult readers!

Iris Hollow is the youngest of three sisters. Her oldest sister, Grey, left to become a famous fashion designer, and the middle sister, Vivi, has gone off to play in a band. Iris is just trying to get through high school but her mysterious past, in which she and her older sisters were abducted, keeps coming back to haunt her. When Grey turns up missing, Iris is determined to find out what happened, but she uncovers a dark and twisted plot that has changed her life forever. 

Fantasy. Mystery. Horror. 
This story is DARK!

I loved the mystery that haunts Iris and her sisters.
What happened to them? Where did they go and how did they end up with matching scars?

The horror bits were REALLY dark. 
Content warning dark.
(Drug use, death, abduction, SA, blood, gore, and body horror).
I've mulled it over but I'm still having a hard time deciding if this is dark fantasy or horror but it has fairytale qualities that will greatly appeal to fantasy readers and is such a dark read that it may only appeal to horror readers.

I will admit that I almost DNF'd this though. 
I didn't love the social media bits, though they were only a small portion of the story. Once I got past them, the story moved on to darker things that kept my attention but I was reminded that even though we live in an age of technology, it is not exactly my cup of tea. 

If I had to compare this to anything, it would be Seanan McGuire's 'Wayward Children' series!