Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow
by Jessica Townsendon October 27, 2020
Genres: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Adventure
Pages: 560
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
The captivating and heart-pounding third book in the instant New York Times bestselling Nevermoor series, as heroine Morrigan battles a new evil.
Morrigan Crow and her friends have survived their first year as proud scholars of the elite Wundrous Society, helped bring down the nefarious Ghastly Market, and proven themselves loyal to Unit 919. Now Morrigan faces a new, exciting challenge: to master the mysterious Wretched Arts, and control the power that threatens to consume her.
But a strange and frightening illness has taken hold of Nevermoor, turning infected Wunimals into mindless, vicious Unnimals on the hunt. As victims of the Hollowpox multiply, panic spreads. And with the city she loves in a state of fear, Morrigan quickly realizes it's up to her to find a cure for the Hollowpox, even if it will put her - and everyone in Nevermoor - in more danger than she ever imagined.
Content Tags:
Perfect for readers who want:
- A vast, whimsical high fantasy world filled to the brim with surprises.
- Charming, funny characters that will steal your heart.
- And then totally refuse to give it back.
- How rude of them, am I right?!
- Mystery with plenty of twists and turns.
- A world that’s somehow both light and magical yet filled with darkness and secrets.
Many thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Rockstar Books for a copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Nevermoor for me is the adult equivalent to my adolescent Harry Potter days. It’s a series that I just can’t get enough of, that I eagerly wait for release days just to binge read the book, only so I can torture myself with an even longer wait for the next one now. I can’t help it. So imagine my utter freaking excitement at being able to get my hands on an ARC and to be on a blog tour for this book!
Hollowpox, the third book in the Nevermoor series, returns to the whimsical world of Wunsoc, but exposes the darker underbelly of it. There’s magic and danger and mystery and everything you could ask for—and Morrigan’s adventure has really only just begun!
I confess that the moment I finished this book, I just felt … empty. I read the last 250 pages in one sitting, and I’d cycled through so many emotions that I just didn’t know what to do with myself anymore. And now I need to wait A WHOLE YEAR at least to read the next one? Talk about an existential crisis.
Before I even get into the meat of this review, I just want to say, if you haven’t read this series yet: READ IT. Right now. Uh-uh, go ahead. I’ll wait.
This review may contain spoilers for the first two books in the series, The Trials of Morrigan Crow and Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow.
As light and fun as Nevermoor has (mostly) been so far, hold on to your umbrellas, folks, because you’re about to see a side of it you never imagined.
Okay, to be fair, you do get a glimpse of the darker side in the second half of the second book. Things really start going sideways. Surprise! They’re not magically fixed here, either. In fact, if you can believe it, things just keep getting worse.
I’ve always loved Nevermoor for the way it can balance whimsy and danger, and this book is a superb showcase of that. There’s still the absolute charm of the Deucalion and the wonder (pun intended) of Morrigan’s developing powers, along with those of her squadmates. Yet, there’s something more real and honest about the ugly side of Nevermoor that I find endlessly fascinating.
Townsend has built a fully fleshed out, well-rounded world, which means you’ll need to learn to live with its shortcomings as well as the finer things it has to offer. *cough*Jupiter*cough*
I absolutely loved the path it took in this book, because kids are trying to kid over here, and then there’s this whole, big world of adults just messing them up with their fighting and problems and darkness. Stupid adults.
The marching musicians accompanying them up the path to Proudfoot House had distracted them from the human-sized vulture things crowding in behind them.
The sparkling, iridescent rainbow archway had blinded them to the fact that every window in the Proudfoot House had begun to bleed—thick, oozing rivulets of red dripped down the brick walls like something out of a horror story.
The trumpeting elephant caught their attention at the bottom of the marble steps just as a team of Wunsoc members conducted a thousand-strong army of spiders to skitter across the shoes of Unit 919.
None of them had noticed a thing.
Despite being set in a fictitious world, so much of the commentary in this book rings true that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it.
I settled for both, which really resulted in a strangled noise that was somewhere between choking dolphin and dying hare. Your welcome for not subjecting you to that.
The Wunimals have never been treated particularly well in Nevermoor—better than in most, which is saying something, but still. In Hollowpox, the Wunimals are treated even worse. There’s a lot of bigotry in this book, much of which mirrors real life if you look close enough, and Morrigan and her friends really struggle with understanding why anyone would think that way. It often defies rhyme or reason, as it does.
This is such an important topic for middle grade readers, especially, and I love the finesse and grace with which Townsend tackles the issue. I’ve always said that fantasy allows us to examine an issue without pre-conceived biases. By removing all social context and history behind an issue, we’re left with just the issue to scrutinize, and that’s definitely the case here, where it’s all too easy to sympathize with the Wunimals.
Any student of history will also recognize the glaring, neon-red, flashing warning signs along the way that mirror history so nicely and create a foreboding and sense of dread in anyone old enough to know the slippery slope they lead down.
They turned as one to look down their noses at him. The man scoffed. “Dogwun. Rubbish. If it’s got four legs, a wet nose, and a tail—it’s a dog. In my day, we called things by their real names and none of this horsewun, rabbitwun, lizardwun nonsense. I’m sick of having to be so respectful all the time. Dogwun,” he finished, shaking his head and downing his cocktail in one. “Someone fetch me another drink,” he added, snapping his fingers in the air.
Morrigan turned to her friends, nonplussed. “What’s wrong with being respectful?”
“Obviously takes more than two brain cells,” Jack muttered.
“Yeah, and they’ve only got one between them,” added Cadence with a snort of laughter.
Morrigan’s arc carries nicely through this, as she struggles to find her place in a society she doesn’t truly fit into, and she’s forced to do a lot of growing up.
Perhaps unfairly so, but no one ever said life’s fair. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone says the opposite when it comes to a cursed child, so Morrigan’s not exactly a stranger to the notion.
Morrigan has come such a long way in these three books. Our little itsy Mog is growing uuuuuup. *cries* Growing up is hard, though, especially for a Wundersmith, and there are certainly truths and realities she has to face, of course.
One of the big themes of this book seems to be that actions have consequences. Even ones you didn’t intend.
This is something I’ve told my daughter repeatedly since she was a toddler, but poor Morrigan is having to learn this the hard way. She’s never really been forced to consider the effect of the things she does, even when she’s intending to help.
Never fear, though—it’s not all doom and gloom, and the cast of characters you know and love is back and better than ever!
Not gonna lie, it’s a little touch and go here and there with Morrigan and her squadmates, but that’s part of growing up, right? They’re still learning how to grow together. Little squabbles are to be expected.
Jupiter North plays a slightly larger role in this than in the previous book, but oh my gosh is he ever handsome and charming and altogether FIERCE. I call dibs on marrying him. I called dibs books ago, but I’m just restating my claim here. He’s an absolute freaking treasure.
I loved Fenestra in the previous books, and while he doesn’t have a huge role in this, he is around and still as fabulous as you might recall. I can’t say anything about anything, because they mostly happen in the second half, but ugh, Fen is a good Magnicat and deserves all the catnip.
“A hundred grown men,” Morrigan corrected him. “And all their mates.”
Favorite Quotes
Don’t look at me like that. I know you’re thinking, But Sammie, you just shared a ton of quotes in your actual review. Yes, I’m aware. I had to do all that typing just for your benefit. You’re welcome. The problem with this book (and let’s be honest, any book in this series) is that there are so darn many great quotes! So I wanted to share more fabulous quotes, because they’re worth it and you deserve it.
Jupiter opened his mouth to say something, but Holliday didn’t need to be spoken for.
“And what can you tell me about all the other attacks, Baz?” she said coolly, not even bothering to stand up or turn around in her seat. “Same as what’s in your head: nothing. That’s because I’ve hushed them up. How about this? I’ll do my job, and you do yours…whatever it may be. Presumably something that requires you to smell bad and sound stupid.”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” it grumbled as she tripped over its outspread roots, looking for a tiny sliver of light hanging in the air. The gnarly old wood-grain face in its trunk curled into a sneer. “Don’t let my ancient roots bother you, they’re only anchored deep in the ground in this fixed position. I’ll just hop out of your way in a sprightly fashion, shall I? Hoppity hop hop.”
Miss Cheery cleared her throat. “Rosh,” she said quietly.
“Okay, fine. He doesn’t have rabies,” Roshni admitted. “But he could have rabies. Or he could have a truncheon. You wouldn’t know.”
Morrigan and Martha shared a look of surprise.
“I—gosh, Fen,” said Morrigan. “That’s really nice. What did you—”
“FENESTRAAAAAAA!” Jupiter’s roar of fury echoed through the empty hotel and all the way down the spiral staircase.
Martha winced, peeking sideways at Fen. “Fish?”
“Rat.” The Magnificat looked extremely put out that her gift had been so poorly received. “It was a really big one too. So ungrateful.”
About Jessica Townsend
Jessica Townsend lives on the Sunshine Coast in Australia, but has lived on and off in London for a few years. She was a copywriter for eight years, and in a previous role, was the editor of a children's wildlife magazine for Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. She is the author of Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow, and Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow.
3 Winners will receive a finished copy of HOLLOWPOX: THE HUNT FOR MORRIGAN CROW
US Only.
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I still need to read the first book, but I’m glad this one is getting such great reception!
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This sounds really great! I’ll admit that I skimmed your review to avoid spoilers for book two, but I did read all the quotes and I LOVE THEM.
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Great review! I cannot wait to pick this one up for Believathon next month!
(www.evelynreads.com)
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‘More Jupiter’ is really all I need to know, haha. But this sounds like a great next installment overall. I’m looking forward to reading it around winter holidays 🙂
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I hope you get to! It was sooo worth a read. I’m so sad that it’s over and I have to wait for the next book again. T_T