Meandering, But Still Charming: Jessica Townsend – Hollowpox

The world of Nevermoor is such a comforting place. First of all, Middle Grade can be a source of strength during reading slumps or after reading about heavy or dark themes. Secondly, Jessica Townsend is still full of creative ideas and shows us new bits of her lovely world with every book. 500 pages feel like nothing when they’re about Nevermoor.

HOLLOWPOX
by Jessica Townsend

Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2020
eBook: 560 pages
Audiobook: 14 hours 27 minutes
Series: Nevermoor #3
My rating: 7/10

Opening line: On a glossy black door inside a well-lit wardrobe, a tiny circle of gold pulsed with light, and at its centre was a small, glowing W.

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 of the Accomplished Wundersmith, and control the power that threatens to consume her.

Meanwhile, 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. There are whispers – growing louder every day – that this catastrophe can only be the work of the Wundersmith, Ezra Squall.

But inside the walls of Wunsoc, everyone knows there is a new Wundersmith – one who’s much closer to home. With Nevermoor in a state of fear and the truth about Morrigan threatening to get out, the city she loves becomes the most perilous place in the world. Morrigan must try to find a cure for the Hollowpox, but it will put her – and everyone in Nevermoor – in more danger than she could have imagined.

Morrigan Crow is back and we get to follow her during her third year in Nevermoor, meet old friends and make new ones, explore interesting new corners of the Wundrous Society, and learn a bit of Wundersmithing with our young heroine.

Going back to Nevermoor is just lovely. There’s all the (by now) known little wonders of this world, there’s Morrigan’s established group of friends and the little found family at the Hotel Deucalion, but there is, of course, also new conflict and danger. The biggest threat to Nevermoor is surely the disease called Hollowpox which affects Wunimals, turning them into seemingly mindless beasts before they fall into a coma. The second, and far less severe, conflict is that Morrigan has gained access to a new type of lesson at Wunsoc, one that takes her away from her classmates and turns her into a little bit of an outsider.

I’ll be honest, this book took a while before it found its footing. It felt somewhat overloaded and didn’t focus enough on its individual aspects, like Townsend tried to cram just a bit too much into its pages. Generally, I love stories with several subplots going on at the same time as the main plot, and this is definitely the case here, but the pacing and the way the puzzle pieces fit together didn’t feel quite right. We get to spend time with most of the important side characters, such as Hawthorn and Jack, Jupiter and Fenestra, Cadence and – as evil as he may be – Ezra Squall, but most of these episodes felt like quick pit stops, just so we could check “funny banter with Hawthorn” off the list of things to do while in Nevermoor. This is a small quibble, but to me, the presence of those side characters wasn’t felt enough during scenes when they weren’t center stage.

As for the plot, that also needs time to find its path. At first, it seems like there’s no one plot to follow at all, just random Nevermoor things like celebrations, school classes, and so on. But as soon as the Hollowpox becomes the clear threat of this story, the plot gets streamlined as well. It’s not like Morrigan has any idea how to stop the spread of this terrifying disease but for some reason, that’s when the book flowed more easily for me and I felt like I was truly in it. There are still frequent side adventures, taking up open questions from previous books or advancing the world building, but it felt like at least we had a goal to work toward. Save the Wunimals, cure the Hollowpox. Also, don’t let Ezra Squall manipulate us emotionally into doing something stupid…

Apart from Townsend’s continuing originality and her wild ideas about all the things that make Nevermoor, Nevermoor, there isn’t all that much that’s new to this instalment. It’s “a Morrigan Crow adventure” and that’s a perfectly fine thing for a book to be. Except toward the end, when during one scene I was reminded that it’s not just a cute Middle Grade book but that I actually care a lot for the characters in it. No spoilers here, but as you can imagine, some characters are in danger at certain times during this book, and some other characters find it worthwile to try and save them. And even though I complained about the side characters not getting enough page time, this moment worked so very well emotionally that Townsend must have done something right.

The ending has one more surprise in store that will make the next book in the series very interesting indeed! Morrigan has grown during her adventures and it shows in her more mature behaviour, her careful handling of difficult situations, but she’s still only thirteen years old. I am super curious to see where her journey will take her and what consequences she’ll have to bear for her decisions…
The audibook narrator, Gemma Whelan, does a great job reading the story and giving the characters distinct voices and/or accents. I wasn’t too happy about Cadence’s way of speaking (she sounds like she’s talking through a pillow, mumbling, mouth full of marbles…) but in general, the audiobook experience was lovely and I think I might go this way with the next book as well. Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow is supposed to come out in October 2022 but I guess I’ll save it up again for a time when I need a book that is guaranteed to be a quick read that gives me all sorts of happy feelings.

MY RATING: 7/10 – Very good