From the Bookshelf of Vampires, Weres and Fae! …

Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, #1)

Kim Harrison

Start date: September 1, 2017

Finish date: September 30, 2017

Discussion: After the Book Discussion

Why we're reading this: Re-read of The Hollows first three books
[close] Re-read of The Hollows first three books

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Sep 26, 2018 Chrissy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, vwf-6500-books-in-2020, vwf-5-stars-2022

The One Where a Witch, a Vampire and a Pixy Walk Into a Bar

(Somewhere along this reread I started having fun with what would this book be called if it was an episode of friends? ...Don't ask me why LOL!)

The Hollows is one of my favorite series. I really shouldn’t love it as much as I do. It has quite a few elements that usually aren’t my thing or even annoy me (too many vampires for my taste, a heroine who has some TSTL tendencies, which usually is a pretty big turn-off for me). And it’s not lik The One Where a Witch, a Vampire and a Pixy Walk Into a Bar

(Somewhere along this reread I started having fun with what would this book be called if it was an episode of friends? ...Don't ask me why LOL!)

The Hollows is one of my favorite series. I really shouldn’t love it as much as I do. It has quite a few elements that usually aren’t my thing or even annoy me (too many vampires for my taste, a heroine who has some TSTL tendencies, which usually is a pretty big turn-off for me). And it’s not like I don’t feel the same way about these things here, but through some strange Hollows magic, I enjoy these feelings when reading about Rachel. I enjoy rolling my eyes at her when she acts first, thinks later and gets herself deeper into trouble. Where other characters in other books acting like this would drive me to consider DNF-ing, Rachel only makes me feel the fondest exasperation and makes me want more. The characters do stupid things sometimes, the relationships aren’t always very healthy… and in the case of this series, the effect that has on me is that it’s making the whole thing feel so authentic. It makes the entire world and the characters in it feel so very “real”, even when the world of the Hollows is much further from the real world (with its alternate history) than the setting of many other urban fantasy series. A significant portion of humanity has been killed off by a plague spread through tomatoes in the 1960s and there are all sorts of supernatural races running around in the open, and it still feels like I could run into any of these characters on my way to the supermarket. Like they could be someone I went to school with. Like I could turn a corner and suddenly find myself standing in front of Rachel, Ivy and Jenks’ church.

The first time around it did take me a few books to get into the series, though. (I want to say until about #4 maybe?) Honestly, I think it was just my luck that I had the e-book bundle of the first four books and thought since I already had the next one, I might as well read it, and the one after that too, and the one after that… because otherwise I might have dropped the series before reaching the point where I absolutely fell in love with it. And that would’ve been such a shame!

When rereading the series, the main thing that strikes me about this first book is how young everyone is - not even really in terms of age, but in terms of what stage of their character development throughout the series they're at - and how all of the major character relationships are just starting out (and are so different from what I know they’re eventually going to be). My favorite parts of the series are always the parts with Al - who only has one scene in this book and isn’t even named yet! - and/or Trent, and I can’t wait to keep reading and get to “the good parts” of these relationships. ...more

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