Hollowmen - Amanda Hocking

Hollowmen by Amanda Hocking

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


"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.

Incase you haven't read Hollowland, let me start at the beginning.
This series is set sometime way in the future where America (and possibly the rest of the world) is basically a wasteland since the spread of a virus known as 'Lyssavirus' which has turned most of the human race into zombies. It follows Remy King, the female protagonist, who goes across America in search of her eight year old brother, Max.
She's formed herself a little group consisting of a Vegas show tiger, an ex-rockstar, a med student and a 13 year old girl who accompany her on this search.

Max, like Remy, is immune to the virus for some reason, meaning they can't get infected. When Remy finally finds Max, turns out he's been tortured and used as an experiment by the last surviving scientists/surgeons who're trying to find a cure to the virus. In order to save her brother, Remy volunteers to take his place since they share the same gene. That's where Hollowland ends.

I'm a huge fan of apocalyptic/dystopian/steampunk novels, especially ones that involve zombies because lets face it, they're AWESOME! I read Hollowland a few months ago and I loved it! So, obviously, I've had extremely high expectations for its sequel (having waited months for it to release).

Amanda Hocking has created an awesome protagonist in this series. Remy is strong,brave and tough as nails. In Hollowmen, while she continues to be all those things, she had lost a bit that unwavering determination to survive - which I guess is understandable. I suppose Remy has changed. After what she went through it's natural, but I put her on a pedestal where she kicks ass no matter what. That's my own fault. However I expected more from this one.

Hollowmen picks up 6 months after Hollowland. I had assumed that half of this book would be about the experiments but thank god it wasn't. The zombies have attacked the shelter Remy's at and almost everyone has evacuated or ended up dead. Remy leaves with the last group of people leaving the shelter and this book follows their adventures from there.

While I wasn't disappointed, I did want more. First of all, this was way too short, at least seemed much shorted than it's prequel. That sucked.

Also, Lazlo? He disappeared!!! I heard like 3 LINES from him! I don't blame Amanda Hocking for this though. I knew the minute I got to the part with Lazlo that Remy wouldn't end up with him. I understood why,although I'm not too happy about it. With Lazlo, Remy would always have to protect him, always be the stronger one. She's a survivor but he needs someone to take care of him. At least, that's what I think Amanda Hocking tried to create when she thought of his character.

Boden on the other hand, he's capable of taking care of Remy. Hell, he does it from the beginning! I do like him, but he's not cute or happy like Lazlo. Lazlo had some lightness to him that I missed in this book. Anyway I'm mentally prepared for Remy to end up with Boden now, so if the final book goes the other way I think I'd have to pull my hair out. To be honest though, if Boden didn't exist and I didn't know this would happen, I would not have liked this book.

There was no actual story to Hollowmen (except the part where they had to get to Canada).. it was way too short and too many pages were wasted on unnecessary stuff. The story's supposed to grow as the series progresses-get faster paced, more gripping, develop characters and such. While this book did grow in some aspects, it let me down in others. Also, I need longer books!

That being said, I'm a huge fan of Hocking so I can't not like her books. I do like Hollowmen but am just not completely satisfied with it and I feel that it's not one of her best work. Anyway, its still a good read and I would definitely finish this series. Hope the next book makes up for what this one lacked.



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