The Hollow - Jessica Verday

TITLE: The Hollow

AUTHOR: Jessica Verday

SUMMARY: When Abbey's best friend, Kristen, 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 shows 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. - From Publisher

REVIEW: The potential for this book was endless, I impatiently waited for my turn to que up from the library only to be disappointed as I started reading this book.

This was Jessica Verday's debut novel and with debuts I'm always willing to let some stuff go. However, I felt like I had to over look lots of aspect of this book.

I was already 100 pages into the book and nothing had happened. It gave me that same feeling you get when you listen to a speaker that has a really monotone voice and causes a fog of boredom to enter one's brain. I wanted to be intrigued and pulled into the story but nothing was going on. It was a lot of pages filled with life's every-day's activities and it got tedious. By the time some action did happen I had really already checked out and nothing Verday could've done would have cleared that fog.

The style of the writing was choppy and at times juvenile, which yes, I do realize it's a teen/ya book but at one point it was teen and then old-school romance and then here and there. Pick a style and work with it, if you want your characters to grow then give them hurdles that allow that growth. Some of Caspian's dialogue was so off-putting and after finishing the book I feel like perhaps Verday was attempting some tricks. Won't say more than that so I don't spoiler but I wasn't impressed.

I wish I could say that I'd pick up the second book of this trilogy to see if perhaps this was just a whoops and that book 2 would have action and an enjoyable plot that would keep me engaged but... I can't. I was just really disappointed with everything, the plot, the characters, the pace and the book cover. Let me dive into that (as I do love dishing about good and bad covers).

I've mentioned this before. Those that say book covers don't make a difference are most likely fibbing. This book cover was extremely deceiving. I hate that. Make sure your model and cover art matches the character in the book. This book cover while eye catching was so opposite of what's in between the covers. The Abbey on the cover was not the Abbey I read about.

On the plus side. I loved how each chapters started with an excerpt from the original story, it made me want to pick up the book to read. The other thing I adored was learning about perfuming and all the ideas that Abbey had for scents and her future shop.

In the end I wouldn't recommend this book. However, if I do read book 2 and it's fantastic then I may recommend this trilogy, but with a warning.

RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥