Have you ever read a book all the way through just to close it for the last time and say “wow, that was bleak”? Well, I’m here to make the case for those dark, dreary, haunting, and disturbing reads that keep you up at night long after you put them down. Welcome to Bleak Books with Olivia, your resident creepy book lover at the Aurora Public Library District.

Let’s switch gears for a minute, shall we? I think it’s time to make the case for teen fiction. I turn 24 in a week, but I still love to read teen fiction. Although it’s not aimed at my age group, recent young adult novels have evolved into darker, scarier, and deeper stories that grip you from start to finish, and the only time House of Hollow doesn’t stick out is when it’s blending into the edgy new class of young adult books.

Iris Hollow just wants to be a normal seventeen-year-old with a normal life, and she does her best to fade into the background at school and in public, but her normal dream is far from reality. When Iris was a child, she and her two sisters, Grey and Vivi, went missing for a month and returned apparently unharmed, but certainly… different. All three sisters’ hair turned the color of snow, matching scars appear on their throats, and each one of them has a new ability more strange and terrifying than they could have imagined. Where did they go? None of the sisters remember. Almost a decade later, Vivi and Grey have left home to live their extravagantly wild lifestyles, leaving Iris with her overprotective widowed mother and nothing but memories of her dead father, who took his life shortly after his daughters returned home.

Iris is finally settling into her seemingly quiet and normal life when her oldest sister, Grey, goes missing. Vivi returns to help Iris search for their sibling, but as they look, the clues they find become increasingly strange, terrifying, and dangerous. Who took Grey, and where did she go? The truth will leave you haunted.

This book was incredibly morbid, haunting, and beautiful all at once. The Hollow sisters were so interesting to read about and were written like real, honest young women. They were tough, honest, imperfect, and brutally beautiful. I cannot recommend this book enough.

So next time you think you’ve run out of things to read, check the teen shelf! You never know what you may find or what may spark your interest. Don’t let the label scare you.

Thank you for joining me on this dissection of one of my favorite Bleak Books. I hope to see you again sometime soon! Please take a look in the Adult and Teen Fiction section at the Aurora and Dillsboro Public Libraries for my favorite Bleak Books, or check out our e-books on Libby. If you are looking for this specific title, you can use our catalog to locate it or ask a librarian for help! If you meet me in the library and have any Bleak Books suggestions, please let me know! I’m always looking for a new book to disrupt my life for a couple of weeks.