#the hollow heart
Book review:The Hollow Heart (The Midnight Lie #2) by Marie Rutkoski
If you’d asked me at the beginning of the year what my most anticipated read of 2021 was, I’d have answered instantly that it was this book. The Midnight Lie took my breath away when I read it, and THAT ENDING had me desperate to get my hands on the sequel.
Which makes it all the more disappointing that The Hollow Heart didn’t meet my (admittedly high) expectations.
With Nirrim’s sacrifice and Sid’s departure at the end of book one, The Hollow Heart sees both women on very different paths. Sid returns to Herran, only to find that her gravely ill mother needs her to play the part of palace spy once more. Meanwhile in Herrath, the heartless Nirrim begins a reign of terror over the people who subjugated her.
WhileThe Midnight Lie is set in the same universe as The Winner’s Curse, it holds its own as a separate story. The Hollow Heart, however, does not. Sid’s quest to investigate her mother’s illness feels disjointed from the events happening on the island of Herrath - and feels more like a sequel to the Winner’s Curse trilogy, rather than a sequel to The Midnight Lie. Don’t get me wrong, I loved getting to see Sid interact with her parents. But the entire storyline was centred around Sid’s parents and the mistakes they’d made in the past - not around Sid herself. Rutkoski barely touched on what I felt was the most interesting potential aspect of bringing Sid’s parents into the story - her turbulent relationship with them, and her determination not to let them dictate how she choses to dress or who she loves. The focus instead is on characters from The Winner’s Curse and their relationships with each other. Sid felt like an afterthought in her own story.
Tonally, Sid’s storyline also felt odd. While Nirrim makes mistake after mistake in Herrath, Sid is miles away playing detective. The two perspectives felt unintentionally jarring, so much so that Sid and Nirrim’s eventual reunion - which happens far, far later in the book than I expected - didn’t have the angsty emotional catharsis that I hoped it would. Reuniting Sid and Nirrim almost feels like an afterthought - something hastily slotted in at the end.
If you’ve read my reviewofThe Midnight Lie, you’ll know how gutted I am when I say that I wasn’t a fan of this book. It’s been a few months since I read it, and looking back I think what disappoints me most is that it made such little impression on me.
Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing a copy of The Hollow Heart. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Rating: 2 stars | ★★✰✰✰
Review cross-posted to Goodreads
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