Bittersweet in the Hollow
By: Kate Pearsall
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: G.P Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Pages:384
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this novel.
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): In rural Caball Hollow, surrounded by the vast National Forest, the James women serve up more than fried green tomatoes at the Harvest Moon diner, where the family recipes are not the only secrets.
Like her sisters, Linden was born with an unusual ability. She can taste what others are feeling, but this so-called gift soured her relationship with the vexingly attractive Cole Spencer one fateful night a year ago . . . A night when Linden vanished into the depths of the Forest and returned with no memories of what happened, just a litany of questions--and a haze of nightmares that suggest there's more to her story than simply getting lost.
Now, during the hottest summer on record, another girl in town is gone, and the similarities to last year's events are striking. Except, this time the missing girl doesn't make it home, and when her body is discovered, the scene unmistakably spells murder.
As tempers boil over, Linden enlists the help of her sisters to find what's hiding in the forest . . . before it finds her. But as she starts digging for truth--about the Moth-Winged Man rumored to haunt the Hollow, about her bitter rift with Cole, and even about her family--she must question if some secrets are best left buried.
First Impressions
The cover is not my favorite. I was offered this book for review and almost turned it down based off of the cover. The summary though sounded intriguing. While it’s not normally what I’d gravitate towards, I thought it would be nice to have a spookier read in October so I was looking forward to it.
What I thought
There is a lot that goes on in this book.
Linden is one of 4 sisters and all the sisters have special abilities. Linden’s is the ability to taste people’s feelings. They live in an Appalachian town of Caball Hallow. A year ago, Linden went missing for 24 hours and she has no memory of that night. Now on the anniversary of her disappearance, another girl goes missing. She and her sisters decide to find out the truth.
First of all, the history and lore of this book is a lot. There’s an entire Moth Winged Man legend which you sort of get dropped into. The powers of the James family sort of gets explained a little more but not fully. I felt like I was dropped into the middle of the story and was constantly trying to get my bearings. I also never quite understood the point of Linden’s power? Like, it never really came in handy for anything. It only ever was negative when she realized she could accidentally bake her feelings to influence the people who ate her food.
This book was also way too long. Around half way through I got so annoyed that I skimmed/speed read the second half. I was curious enough to want to find out who murdered the other girl, who kidnapped Linden, and how Cole was involved, but not enough that I wanted to devote hours to finding out. When I did find out what happened, it was exactly what I had predicted with the exception of one element that got so weird that if I hadn’t lost interest before, I would’ve then.
I think that Pearsall really needed to cut back on the lore and mythology in the book to really focus on what was necessary to the story. It seems like this is the first in a series and so I wonder if she was trying to set up for other books, but it was a lot.
The first half of this book was interesting enough. If you are into this kind of book, maybe you’ll do better with it than I did. I got annoyed with the characters and the writing at halfway and then skimmed, but the idea was enough to make me curious so I’ll give it that.