Review: The Hollow Gods

The Hollow Gods by A.J. Vrana
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

DNF @ 30%

Look, this was probably more me than the book, but it's a tough call.

I was reading an e-copy, which meant it was already likely to be neglected, and unfortunately it just wasn't captivating enough to remind me to go back to it.

It's clearly ambitious, but for me it just seemed a little too messy and sprawling and it always took me a while to pick the thread back up. There are multiple viewpoints, and Kai has some issues that are so vague they're confusing more than intriguing.

Overall, it seemed to be trying a little too hard. It felt amateur and messy and crass. It was clunky and awkward in the way it set scenes and crafted dialogue, and on the whole just made me want to cringe a lot.

I did enjoy Mason's POV to a degree, because he seemed like an interesting character, but some of the scenes were so cliche it was embarrassing. Kai's attitude was overdone, and the girl was so bland I can't even remember her name or the point of her even being in this story.

Perhaps if I had a physical copy of this book it'd be easier to read, but I think it's just a little under-edited so I'd probably still end up cringing a lot as I skimmed my way through it. There really are a lot of cheesy moments and scenes and the whole thing came off as unbelievable.

There's promise in the idea, and the creation of the world, but the delivery was off. The characters are two-dimensional and the story is so vague that 30% in it seemed that nothing had really happened and I wasn't even curious about what was to come.

Others who have more patience than I (and a better track record with e-books) might appreciate this one a little more, and perhaps the reward is beyond the 30% mark. But for me there just hasn't been enough to hook me into reading further.

With thanks to Netgalley for a copy

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