The Hollow-Jessica Verday

Abbey Browning is a 16-year-old from Sleepy Hollow, New York. Her friend, Kristen Maxwell died in August and she meets a boy named Caspian at her friend funeral. She falls in love with Caspian, but he has a difficult time meeting up with her. Abby also is into perfume making and wants to open up her own shop downtown. She finds out that Kristen was keeping secrets from her. She meet a old couple at the cemetery. She treats them like she'd treat her grandparents.

Basically this story has a lot of grief, romance, mystery and humor in it. I liked it, though I wish there was more supernatural stuff in it. Caspian's a ghost, not that saying that is a huge spoiler. I thought so when Abbey first met him.

I can't wait till the next book. I hope it's better and has more of a supernatural legend element to it. Two and a half stars.

~*Haley*

Poplit Journel Entry:

This book was pretty interesting despite its lack of supernatural events. I like that it was written in first person point of view. I like the humor in some of Abbey’s thoughts. I liked the character Abbey because she was different from most female characters in my stories. Abbey likes to make perfume. It’s her hobby. I never heard of any teenagers making perfume before, so I thought it was cool that she did something more unique. She even dreams of opening up her own perfume shop someday called Abbey’s Hallow. I also liked that the story was set in Sleepy Hollow, New York. I have never read Washington Irving’s story, but I’ve heard about it. I think it was very creative of the author to take a classic legend and build on it or change it in the setting of the modern world. I also liked that the book was a fast read despite its thickness. The words are just the right size and spacing on the pages that I didn’t feel like it was dragging on. The only thing I really dislike in the book is that it had barely any supernatural horror in it. There were a few supernatural elements in it such as Abbey seeing a figure in her room when she woke up from her nightmare, or that Abbey dreamed Kristen’s death and felt it when it happened. When Abbey met Caspian I knew right away he was a ghost, but she didn’t realize that till the second to last chapter of the book. There was this huge gap of supernatural occurrences that was like three-hundred pages long. It was only teen romance and troubles for a while. I’m fine with romance as long as it’s interesting, but I was anticipating something less realistic the whole time. It made me read faster. Finally, near the end, something happens. Caspian calls out the old couple Abbey’s been visiting, Nickolas and Katy, and tell Abbey that they’re not what they seem. The couple later confesses that they are the Headless Horseman and Katrina from the legend. Abbey find out from Caspian’s Dad at the car repair she that Caspian’s been dead for two years and doesn’t believe it. When Caspian’s hand passes through her, she thinks she is going crazy. At the end she leaves Sleepy Hollow and is going to see a psychiatrist while away. I really hated that it ended with that. I want more. I wonder when the second book is going to be out. It did mention a sequel. I firmly believe the sequel will be better, much better that the first book. I did enjoy this book, but it’s still not my favorite. My favorite usually involve characters with bird-like wings. Nothing. Absolutely nothing, can live up to the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson.