An interesting read for fans of the darker side of fairy stories. The plot wasnt what I was expecting but it kept my interest all the way through and I enjoyed all the different characters. There is a bit of a creep factor to several of the male characters that I didnt think was handled as well as it could have been, and the pacing was also an issue towards the end of the story but still enjoyable. I might check out the other books in the trilogy if I come across them but will leave them off my to read list for now. ( )

*Review under construction*
Kate jumped to her feet. "You people are just ghastly!" she cried. The goblin King shook his striped hair out of his face and looked up at her with a smile.
"Which ones of us?" he asked.
"All of you! You wife stealers!"
"But I didn't steal you," replied Marak complacently.
"But you're just like that other King!"
Marak laughed as he shut the book. "No," he retorted, "I'm not green."
Kate was beside herself. "You know what I mean!" she shouted. "You're one of them! The descendant of all those wife-stealing Kings!"
He thought about that as she marched from the room. "I'm the descendant of all those wives, too," he mused, but Kate had already slammed the door. ( )

This has to be one of my all time favorite books ever! I absolutely love Kate and Marak. This book is incredibly mature (and by that I don't mean graphic or sexual or anything like that, merely it depicts very dimensional and well rounded characters who aren't always goody-goody) for the audience that it is targeting. I have read and re-read this book a million times and will continue to do so because it just does not diminish for me. The world building is superb and the characters multi-faceted. Clare Dunkle is an amazing author! ( )

You’ve caught a goblin, my dear, all for your very own.
----
Kate and Emily, having been recently and conveniently orphaned, arrive at their ancestral lands of Hallow Hall to live with their new guardian. But Hallow Hall is not theirs alone, and the goblin king who lives below will have his bride come hell or high water.

I didn’t realize The Hollow Kingdom was foundational YA fantasy, but having read this book I see so many shades of it in other stories. Holly Black clearly read this book (to the point where I can see several deliberate callouts in her work), and The Goblin Emperor also takes its cues from here, as does Spinning Silver. Dunkle isn’t inventing the wheel – she dedicates The Hollow Kingdom to Lloyd Alexander, who wrote his own foundational fantasy series. Nevertheless, The Hollow Kingdom is clearly an inspiration to many works that I’ve enjoyed.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed The Hollow Kingdom as much as I’ve enjoyed its successors. I certainly enjoyed the first half, where Kate uses her wits to escape the goblin king Marak again and again (no thanks to her sister Emily, who is clearly being set up for a sequel but otherwise plays little role in this book). Kate is a great protagonist: stubborn, brave, and very determined to stay above ground and not wedded to a goblin. I also quite enjoyed Dunkle’s worldbuilding, which has a lovely English folktale feel to it.

But the second half is honestly a disaster. Once Kate marries Marak, she basically gives up all fight and spunk and goes meekly to her fate. There’s a lot of character development that happen over rapid time skips, in which Kate goes from unwilling prisoner to “eh, it’s fine and I kinda like it down here.” Which is dumb character development. You can’t handwave character development in a time skip. You just can’t.

Not to mention the ending conflict comes out of left field and has almost nothing to do with the first half. And also not to mention the second half gets very bogged down introducing characters who will undoubtedly be of critical importance in the sequel.

So, in summary, good first half and terrible second half. But The Hollow Kingdom did inspire some of my favorite books, so I’ll forever be grateful for that. Just not grateful enough to bump it up a star. ( )

Totally holds up over time. Haven’t read this book in probably 15 years and I couldn’t put it down. ( )