The Hollow- Chapter Three- Nightmares and Hallucinations
Remember how the preface mentioned that our narrator was haunted? I'm going to assume that we're going to be hearing about it in this chapter.
Several days have passed and Abbey isn't sleeping well. She tells us that school is beginning in two weeks, so that means we're in August, right? So, why all the gloomy weather? I've lived on the east coast and August is usually so hot you can't stand it, crazy humid and when it does rain, it feels like being in a lukewarm shower instead of being all cold and icky. Is Sleepy Hollow in some kind of magical warp field where it's always November or something?
It seems that the nightmares are a new thing. So, she hasn't been haunted before? She thinks that she sees a shape (hi Edward Cullen, I see that you're stalking with love!) and she's getting freaked. This is actually a pretty normal response, so good for our heroine. She goes about some of her normal tasks and thinks about how Kirsten is missing from these activities. Okay, we're getting somewhere, this actually works. She calls Kirsten's phone and leaves a message. After my aunt passed away, we found a message from her on the answering machine. Even though it was old and kind of weird to hear it every time we had to check old messages, no one could bear to delete it. It stayed there until the machine broke down. This is how real grieving works. I wish we had started the book here.
Then we get another scene of Abbey bitching to her mom about all the untrue rumors circulating about Abbey's friend. I realize that teens bitch and a grieving person is going to be crankier than usual, but it still comes across as whining. Again, it's been only two months. Shouldn't you be more concerned that everyone has written off Kristen as dead when she might be locked in a shed and pregnant with some crazed sex maniac's baby?
And yes, I am going to harp on this missing girl thing because it's a major problem. The fact that she is missing actually has next to no plot relevance. We could have begun with the discovery of her body because our heroine never sets off to find her friend or uncover the mystery. She just calmly accepts that Kristen is gone and gets on with her life. Given the circumstances, her behavior comes across as callous, rather than as an attempt to accept things and cope.
Abbey's mom takes her out to a new herb store and we start to learn about Abbey's hobby. She creates custom perfumes. This is actually something that people complain about on the Amazon.com reviews, but it's actually one of the things I like about the book. Granted, there's a lot of time devoted to perfume with no payoff. Abbey isn't going to brew a potion to save the day or identify poison plants. Still, I do like that the author is trying to make her more of a complete person than the usual Bella Swan. Abbey has a non-boy-related activity and some long-term goals for her life. This should raise the stakes when we reach the inevitable decision to go with the supernatural love interest instead of pursuing her own plans.
Working on a perfume for Kristen helps calm Abbey and she is able to sleep through the night at last. Sadly, this has nothing to do with anything as far as I can tell. Kirsten's ghost does not factor into the story nor does anything else that might be mollified by perfume or someone thinking about the deceased.
Several days have passed and Abbey isn't sleeping well. She tells us that school is beginning in two weeks, so that means we're in August, right? So, why all the gloomy weather? I've lived on the east coast and August is usually so hot you can't stand it, crazy humid and when it does rain, it feels like being in a lukewarm shower instead of being all cold and icky. Is Sleepy Hollow in some kind of magical warp field where it's always November or something?
It seems that the nightmares are a new thing. So, she hasn't been haunted before? She thinks that she sees a shape (hi Edward Cullen, I see that you're stalking with love!) and she's getting freaked. This is actually a pretty normal response, so good for our heroine. She goes about some of her normal tasks and thinks about how Kirsten is missing from these activities. Okay, we're getting somewhere, this actually works. She calls Kirsten's phone and leaves a message. After my aunt passed away, we found a message from her on the answering machine. Even though it was old and kind of weird to hear it every time we had to check old messages, no one could bear to delete it. It stayed there until the machine broke down. This is how real grieving works. I wish we had started the book here.
Then we get another scene of Abbey bitching to her mom about all the untrue rumors circulating about Abbey's friend. I realize that teens bitch and a grieving person is going to be crankier than usual, but it still comes across as whining. Again, it's been only two months. Shouldn't you be more concerned that everyone has written off Kristen as dead when she might be locked in a shed and pregnant with some crazed sex maniac's baby?
And yes, I am going to harp on this missing girl thing because it's a major problem. The fact that she is missing actually has next to no plot relevance. We could have begun with the discovery of her body because our heroine never sets off to find her friend or uncover the mystery. She just calmly accepts that Kristen is gone and gets on with her life. Given the circumstances, her behavior comes across as callous, rather than as an attempt to accept things and cope.
Abbey's mom takes her out to a new herb store and we start to learn about Abbey's hobby. She creates custom perfumes. This is actually something that people complain about on the Amazon.com reviews, but it's actually one of the things I like about the book. Granted, there's a lot of time devoted to perfume with no payoff. Abbey isn't going to brew a potion to save the day or identify poison plants. Still, I do like that the author is trying to make her more of a complete person than the usual Bella Swan. Abbey has a non-boy-related activity and some long-term goals for her life. This should raise the stakes when we reach the inevitable decision to go with the supernatural love interest instead of pursuing her own plans.
Working on a perfume for Kristen helps calm Abbey and she is able to sleep through the night at last. Sadly, this has nothing to do with anything as far as I can tell. Kirsten's ghost does not factor into the story nor does anything else that might be mollified by perfume or someone thinking about the deceased.