Read Our Lips! Book Review Blog: Hollowmen (Hollows #2) by Amanda Hocking

Hollowmen - the sequel to Hollowland....

After six months in the quarantine, Remy finds out things are much worse than she feared. Her plans to escape come with a heavy cost, and she realizes that zombies aren't the worst of her problems.

This is a young adult novel with language, violence, and sexual situations. Not recommended for readers under the age of 17.

My Review:

In Hollowmen, Part 2 in the Hollows Series, we find that Remy has endured six months as a guinea pig in a lab where scientists run several tests and operations in their quest to find out why she’s immune to the zombie virus.

Just as she’s being prepped for another grisly operation – with no anesthesia – all the doctors freeze in terror. Sirens are going off all over the base and it’s apparent zombies have broken in. It quickly turns to every-man-for-himself and the doctors rush out, leaving Remy strapped on the operating table with an incision across her stomach.

Weak and battered, Remy somehow manages to get free and go outside the medical facility where all hell has broken loose in the compound. Her friends, Lazlo and Harlow have already been evacuated and there is one last team scouring the base for survivors before it’s abandoned.

Remy quickly joins with them and sets out to once again find her brother Max, whom she entrusted to her friend, Blue, to escape from the scientist’s grasp six months ago. Things don’t bode well when she finds Blue along the road as a zombie.

Determined not to stop until she finds her brother, she sets out to his last known address and miraculously finds him alive and well. (Thank goodness because I don’t think I could take another book-long quest on finding her brother.) And guess who is alongside her brother, Max? Yes, it’s Ripley – the tame zombie-eating lioness! *happy dance*

Spurred on by their reunion, Remy and her new small band of characters set out north to Canada – where it’s rumored to be zombie-free due to the cold weather. As they travel, they’ll soon know there’s more danger within their camp than what the zombies throw at them.

I enjoyed reading Hollowmen – though I was a bit disappointed that Lazlo (who played the love interest in the previous book) is nowhere to be found in this book. My heart fluttered when Remy happens to talk to him via CB radio, but my happiness was short lived when it becomes apparent they won’t be meeting up. They quickly say their goodbyes and hope they see each other again. *sobs*

From her website – Amanda Hocking’s Blog – it’s not clear if there will be a part 3 in this series. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, though, as it would make for one hell of a read for Lazlo to find Remy, since at the end of the book, she’s moved on to a new man! *faints*

All in all, we get a happy ending in Hollowmen *breathes sigh of relief* and that makes this harrowing, non-stop action story a great read!

The black stitches were pressed tight against my puffy, red flesh. It was scabby, and when I touched it, fresh blood oozed from it. Since I had nothing better to clean it with, I splashed river water over it, wiping it off as gently as I could.

This was really my fault, and not because I did such a rushed job of stitching myself up. I’d been pushing myself too hard, and doing a hundred crunches last night couldn’t have helped it.

But I had to be stronger if I planned on fighting off zombies with my bare hands. Irritating a wound seemed like small potatoes compared with getting my head bitten off by a monster.

Once I’d cleaned that up sufficiently, I washed off the rest of my body, trying to remove the sweat and grime. When I went back to the shore, I glanced over to the other side of the bridge, where everyone else was still getting cleaned up. Nolita seemed to be enjoying a nice, long swim.

I crouched down to dig through my messenger back for clean-ish clothes when I heard something in the bushes at the base of the bridge. I stood up slowly, scanning for anything to defend myself with, but what came out of the bushes was something I wasn’t at all prepared for.

It was a zombie, but one so newly turned it still maintained all its human features, so it was instantly recognizable. It was Blue. He had a few tell-tale marks that he was zombie, including a giant, festering bite wound out of his arm that he hadn’t bothered to wrap at all. His eyes were the same warm shade of gray I remembered them being, but now the whites were jaundiced and blood shot. Plus, they were completely maniacal and crazed. Blue was definitely a zombie, and a young one, which meant he’d be hella fast and hella strong.

It took a second for that register, though. For a second, all I could do was gape at him and feel sick to my stomach. Then he growled and charged at me, and I sprang into action. I bolted, slipping on stones because my feet were wet, and ran toward the embankment. Blue gave chase, stumbling on the same rocks that had given me trouble, and I made sure to lead him away from the others.

Part of that was because I didn’t want to endanger other people, but it was more than that. For reasons I didn’t completely understand, I felt responsible for him. Blue was my zombie, and I would take care of him.

As I raced up the embankment, using my hands to pull myself up quicker, he was right on my heels. He actually successfully managed to grab one of my feet once, but I got him off by kicking him in the face. He let out a low death groan after that, and I prayed he wasn’t calling more zombies.

I made it all the way to the top and looked around for anything to use to defend myself. Part of a rusted muffler sat on the shoulder of the highway, a leftover from a time when people were still driving around. It had a nice jagged edge from where it had snapped off the car.

I ran toward it, and just before I reached it, Blue knocked me to the ground. He hit my back, and I tumbled face down in the dirt. I rolled onto my back, and when he tried to dive on me, I lifted my legs and kicked him squarely in the chest, knocking him back. With only seconds to reach it before Blue was on me again, I crawled on my belly over to the muffler. My fingers had just wrapped around it when I felt Blue’s hands on me, like claws digging into my thighs and butt.

I flipped back over, and Blue grabbed onto my thighs, pulling me closer to him. As soon as I was underneath him, I jammed the sharp end of the muffler right into his jugular. I rolled to the side, narrowly missing a spurt of his blood.

He was fairly new, so the blood hadn’t gotten as thick or green as it eventually would, but it still didn’t look like a human’s. He clawed at his throat, trying to pull it out, and let out a garbled howl. I got to my feet and kicked him in the side, so he fell to the ground on his back, still trying to get it out of his throat. I didn’t know how long it would take him to bleed out, and honestly, I didn’t want him to suffer. Somewhere, buried way underneath the zombie mania, was my friend Blue, and he didn’t deserve to suffer any longer than he absolutely had to.

I grabbed the muffler and yanked it across his throat.