Okay, wow. I know I didn't like this series at the start, but it has definitely grown on me and it has stolen my heart (as well as my social life).
Let me just start with saying: Carrie Ryan is an amazing author. She has this way of writing that absolutely pulls you in. I promised myself I wouldn't get carried away when reading this book and that I'd pace my way through it, but that's just so hard to do. This has so much to do with her writing technique because it's detailed, deep and it really gets your mind working; I don’t want this series to end.

In this book, we get to see into the life of Annah, Gabry's twin sister. We get to see everything from her point of view, from the day she got lost in the woods, to the day she’s reunited with her sister. I love the contrast between the two books, Gabry who was a happy girl whose life took a completely different turn when she ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, to Annah, who struggled through her whole life and worked hard for what she needed to survive and keep going. I loved all the characters in this book (except for the ones we're not meant to like - in which case, I like the way they were written and set out) they were thrilling and they worked really well with the story.

Another great thing about this book is that it definitely surprises you. The outcome of an action in the story can be completely different to what you thought it would be, so you never know what’s really going to happen. That’s a great quality in the book, because it keeps the person transfixed, dying to know what will happen next and to know if it’ll be good or bad. That’s why this series is so addictive; you’re always left with these cliff-hangers that leave the story with little to no hope, or a thousand possibilities for the next story. Suspension keeps the story alive.

The basic plot of this story is really detailed and intense and it makes for one amazing story. I would recommend this book to almost anyone, excluding people who haven't read the first and second book, I recommend you read them first, or else the story would be much harder to follow. I also think that anyone who has followed the series to keep going, because it's one amazing story.

This is the third book set in the world we first discovered through Carrie Ryan’s “The Forest of Hands and Teeth”. The Dark & Hollow places is just as intense as the previous books and really ties the whole story  together, answering questions I didn't even know I had.  If you’ve read the previous books you’ll probably find this starts off more terrifying that the others; it’s Annah’s story, and she wants to go back to her village in the Forest of Hands and Teeth. The idea is enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine.

However, the problem with Carrie Ryan's writing is that she writes so well that you're transported to the world, can hear it, see it, smell it, but I just don't want to stay trapped in this horror that long.

In the Dark & Hollow places there’s just no let up. There’s very little ebb and flow in the level of horror and emotional intensity, which creates an emotional overload, and turns exciting text into a collection of boring adjectives.  A reader, or at least THIS reader, needs time to process and appreciate the horror and terror of the situation, without that pause of contemplation it just becomes monotonous.

I think that the thing to remember with these books, they’re zombie books, and although they’re written for a teen audience, they’re supposed to be scary and challenge boundaries, which this certainly achieves. As an adult reader the book almost got thrown across the room (I didn’t say I was a ‘mature’ reader), I found the constant threats towards Annah by sleazy Recruiters just unbearable. Not to mention the level of violence levelled against her by them. 

I think Ms Ryan may have forgotten that the humans that are still alive are not all going to be the same age. So where Annah and her cohorts are going to be in the mid teens, a lot of the men attempted to attack, accost, murder or rape her are men, grown men, which makes for an exceedingly uncomfortable plot device. If only she’d killed a few of them off at strategic moments it would have made the whole thing much more enjoyable. But I found this aspect was just a little too much like examining the worst possible outcome of human nature. Not everyone is horrid, and in the middle of a zombie apocalypse that’s been going on for a century, I still don’t believe that all those who choose to ‘serve and protect’ will all become bullies and sadistic rapists. Of course, that’s my adult perception –in the story itself there was never anything more untoward that a kiss and a slap, I just read more into the intent.

The other niggle is the amount of anguish and self-loathing Annah goes through over her scars, I expected a much more traumatic story behind how she got them. But sadly it appears it's just vanity in a world populated by zombies.

From reading the previous novels there is a sense of anticipation while reading as to what happens next, but also an incredible anxiousness, we know that Ms Ryan doesn’t always feel the need to deliver a happy ending, and most readers will be excused if they decide to kill a few fairies and read the ending first. As an ending of the series, it feels a little rushed and almost incomplete.  Overall, Carrie Ryan writes incredibly well, I just wish she’d allowed the reader to slow down and take a breath.