Rarity from the Hollow by Robert Eggleton
Lacy Dawn’s father relives the Gulf War, her mother’s teeth are rotting out, and her best friend is murdered by the meanest daddy on Earth. Life in The Hollow isn’t great. But Lacy has one advantage — she’s been befriended by a semi-organic, semi-robot who works with her to cure her parents. He wants something in exchange, though. It’s up to her to save the Universe.
Will Lacy Dawn’s predisposition, education, and magic be enough for her to save the Universe, Earth, and, most importantly, protect her own family?
Rarity from the Hollow is adult literary science fiction filled with tragedy, comedy and satire. It is a children’s story for adults, not for the prudish, faint of heart, or easily offended.
Amazon Barnes and Noble Goodreads Website
My Review
3 stars
Lacy Dawn’s life is full of abuse and death. Her father suffers from PTSD and beats and abuses both Lucy and her mother. Lucy’s best friend is Faith, a girl that was beaten to death by her father, and the trees. Lucy meets DotCom, a robot that offers her a chance to “fix” her parents if she goes shopping at the universes biggest mall. This shopping trip helps prepare her to fight the cockroaches that are taking over.
This book is told in a couple parts. The first part about Lacy and her home life is heartbreaking. I know things like this happen all the time but we seem to have blinders on as we go through our own lives. You can tell that Robert Eggleton has had a lot of personal dealings with this aspect of life. The next part is more of a satirical look at adults while Lucy trains in the universes largest mall. And then end battle with the cockroaches seemed to lose me.
Although the beginning is heartbreaking, I think the second half of the book could have been a story of its own. You do need some background on Lucy but when she heads to the mall the story gets turned on its head. It didn’t really flow well and left me feeling jolted and had a hard time recovering.
I did like the story if it would have been two different stories. But the best part of Rarity from the Hollow is author proceeds are donated to child abuse prevention. I would purchase this book just for that.
I received Rarity from the Hollow from the author in exchange free of charge. This has not influenced my opinion of this book.
[…] 24, 2016, I reviewed the book Rarity from the Hollow by Robert Eggleton. You can find my review here. In the mean time, I spoke with Robert about some updates that he has on this book. First of all, […]
Hi Jessica,
Happy New Year! I hope that you’re doing okay. After Christmas sales are tallied, the publisher is going to make the next deposit of author proceeds from the Rarity from the Hollow project into the nonprofit agency’s account for the prevention of child maltreatment. Millions of American children spent this holiday in temporary shelters. A lot more world-wide likely spent their respective “holidays” in worse conditions. Having once been the director of emergency children’s shelters in West Virginia, it is still heartbreaking to think about children not having a “real” family during Christmas. I remember the faces, the smiles and thank yous for the presents from staff, but….
I also wanted you to know that the novel received a very cool review by Amazing Stories Magazine. This is my tweet: “Amusing at times, shocking at others, a touching and somehow wonderful SFF read.” Full review by Amazing Stories Magazine: http://bit.ly/2kbsAlV On Sale for Christmas: http://amzn.to/2lF5BPS Proceeds help maltreated children: http://www.childhswv.org
Thanks again for the review and the update. I just shared the link to your blog again on social media.
Take care,
Robert
P.S. Just FYI, here’s the link to a review that nailed the political parody in my story, connected the tragedy with the comedy, and its overall child welfare interests within this climate of adversity in America. https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2RAXNLSHTUDUF/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=190713395X I thought that you might appreciate reading this review.