These Hollow Vows

Ok this book has literally been on my tbr ever since I saw it was going to be published, not only because it was advertised as being similar to book series I've enjoyed, but also because of that damned beautiful cover. And after flying through it in two days, I'll say the book delivers. There's a few tropes that feel a little overused (love triangle comes to mind), but that's a personal-taste thing. Absolutely give this one a go if you're a fantasy/romance/ya/adventure fan and you enjoy the likes of Sarah J Maas and similar series. Two days of reading, and now I'm already impatiently waiting for the second. Argh...the life of a reader!

I knew it would be bad. I've expected that. But even I was surprised with how terrible These Hollow Vows turned out to be.

I understand, that it is difficult to write an original work in our times. But did the author even try? I constantly felt, as if I was reading direct quotations from different stories and books. That was such a weird mix of Cinderella, A Court of Thornes and Roses, The Selection, The Beauty and The Beast and I don't even know what else.

All characters are really hard to remember because their description often stops at the color of their eyes. Huh, that this book reminded me of how I played with my cousin with cartoon dolls (you had to cut out different paper dresses and accessories for them) We came up with all kinds of silly stories. The characters in the book had even less personality than my dolls.

The only person who does stands out is our main character - Abriella “Brie” Kincaid. She has red hair and can hide in shadows. That is pretty much all we know about her. Except for how annoying she is. She is a cunning thief - and leaves her blood on the crime scene and gets traced back. She has deep trust issues and then she trusts literally everyone and believes everything she hears. She hates fairies. And guess what? She falls in love with every fairy as soon as she sees them, no surprise here. And I have not even mentioned what a little special snowflake she is, or a Fire Girl as the author repeatedly names her. Because our girl is definitely not like other girls. She has red hair, doesn't do makeup, and doesn't want to marry a prince. Oh, she also doesn't have breasts, because God forbid that the main character in YA will have a figure. The biggest disappointment is that she was supposed to be smart and independent. But Brie turned out to be lost and blind and just pathetic.

Going back to the bigger picture, the story was predictable from the first pages. We meet a character and we instantly know what will happen with him. There were supposed to be. lot of twists, but the only surprised person was main character. Do you want know how reading THV feels? Imagine that you are in a car and your friend is driving. He tells you some engaging story. And at one point you notice, that he doesn't look on the road at all. You see the car that is going straight for you, you scream for him to do something, but your friend continues to tell the story until the crash. These Hollow Vows is that crash over and over again.