Hollow Kingdom, Kira Jane Buxton
Hollow Kingdom, Kira Jane Buxton
2 Rating(s)
List: $27.99 | Sale: $19.59
Club: $13.99

Hollow Kingdom

Author: Kira Jane Buxton

Narrator: Robert Petkoff

Unabridged: 10 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/06/2019


Synopsis

In this hilarious, "dazzling" romp, a foul-mouthed crow is humanity's only chance to survive a zombie apocalypse–think Watership Down meets Dawn of the Dead (Mona Awad, author of Bunny).

S.T. is a bird of simple pleasures: hanging out with his human owner, Big Jim, trading insults with Seattle's wild crows (i.e. ""those idiots""), and enjoying the finest food humankind has to offer: Cheetos ®. But when Big Jim's eyeball falls out of his head, S.T. starts to think something's not quite right. 

With no choice but to abandon his old life and venture out into a frightening new world with his trusty steed Dennis (a loyal but dimwitted dog), S.T. discovers that the neighbors are devouring one other. Humanity's extinction has seemingly arrived, and the only one determined to save it is a cowardly crow whose only knowledge of the world comes from TV–What could possibly go wrong?
 
Includes a Reading Group Guide.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ on October 13, 2016

This is a wonderful, different kind of YA fantasy, set in Victorian times in England. It takes the old trope--goblin kings kidnap beautiful girls, marry them and they never see the light of day again--and twists it: Goblins are lovable even if ugly and, um, prone to kidnapping women for their wives.......more

Goodreads review by Julie on July 27, 2010

I... well. The beginning is creepy in a good way. The end is creepy in a bad way. The beginning has a sense of danger from a goblin menace. The end is some sort of apologia for rape, abduction, and Stockholm Syndrome. This book just kinda grosses me out.......more

Goodreads review by Keertana on April 21, 2013

If you had asked me just last year, I would have told you I didn't have a favorite fairy tale. I grew up hating "Snow White" and while I adored nearly every "Cinderella" movie re-telling I'd seen, the original story was not among my favorites at all. As a child, I never actually saw "Beauty and the......more

Goodreads review by AziaMinor on April 04, 2019

I read this so long ago it thought it give it another go. Just as great as it was in 6th grade. Everyone please read it you'll love everybody in it sure of it😍 This will always be my quickest read because it is so good and so fast. Everything happens all at once and Duncan just writes in a way that k......more

Goodreads review by Di on January 20, 2021

Occasionally you pick up a book that perfectly fits your mood and circumstances. This was one of those for me. It felt warm and comforting, with an old English setting and some kick-ass characters I could really get behind. I LOVED it. When Kate and Emily Winslow's parents die, they are sent to live......more


Quotes

"Hollow Kingdom is a nature book for our own age, an exuberant, glittering, hard-hitting mashup of Dawn of the Dead and The Incredible Journey. It's an adventure lit by strange myths, brand-names, television and smartphone screens, a fable with teeth and claws about animals making new lives amongst the ruins of humanity. It's transformative, poignant, and funny as hell. S.T. the irrepressible, cursing crow is my new favourite apocalyptic hero."β€”Helen Macdonald, New York Times bestselling author of H Is for Hawk

"A plucky hero, a boisterous tale, startling prose and eerie events combine for a thoroughly enjoyable account of the end of the world as we know it. The Secret Life of Pets meets The Walking Dead."β€”Karen Joy Fowler, PEN/Faulkner Award-winningauthor of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

"I love this book so much! I wanted to set it on fire while hugging it. I wanted to hasten the apocalypse just to see how my own pets fare in a more humane world without humans. Kira Jane Buxton's voice is fresh, like a newly dug grave, but so joyful and honest you'll laugh out loud, and then check to make sure you haven't lost an eyeball. Hollow Kingdom is a wildly original debut and a paean to my favorite city."β€”Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author ofHotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

"Hollow Kingdom offers a bird's-eye view of the apocalypse we all want and need-especially when the bird in question is a plucky, Cheeto-loving domesticated crow . . . With infinite heart and humor, Kira Jane Buxton's fine-feathered narrator guides us through richly imagined animal realms while braving the terrifying collapse of the human world. A dazzling, wholly original debut, revealing the great paradox of humanity's fatal flaws and resilient spirit."β€”Mona Awad, authorof 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl and Bunny

"Everything you're hearing about Kira Jane Buxton's Hollow Kingdom--that it's wildly original and inventive, funny and profane--is wonderfully true. But even better, this book is timely, smart, movingly written, and beautifully concluded."β€”Laurie Frankel, author of This isHow It Always Is and member of the Seattle7 Writers

"What a surprising, funny, terrifying, marvelous, wholly original novel! Buxton combines a vivid horror show (think zombies and the gruesome, bloody extinction of man) with a touching love story between the unlikeliest of BFFs: a crow, a hound, and a man who's had a tough go of things on Tinder, and that was before his eyeball fell out. With humor and a style that brings to mind Tom Robbins and Karen Russell, Buxton's debut is heartwarming and heart stopping, hilarious and tragic."β€”Amy Poeppel, author of Limelight and Small Admissions

"A hilariously exuberant and heart-bursting fable for our times, Hollow Kingdom reminds us that creativity and determination (and a whole lot of love) can go a long way toward saving the world. When Mr. Rogers said to look for the helpers, who knew that might mean a salty-mouthed crow and a faithful bloodhound?"β€”Jennie Shortridge, bestselling author of LoveWater Memory and member of the Seattle7 Writers

"If you've ever thought that humans were the ones in charge, Kira Jane Buxton's groundbreaking novel will have you thinking otherwise. Full of unforgettable humor, insight and beauty, Hollow Kingdom enriches our human experience by inhabiting the minds (and bellies!) of our non-human animal companions and reminding us that we're not alone here on this earth."β€”Ruth Ozeki, nationally bestselling author of A Tale for the Time Being

"Hollow Kingdom is a grown-up's Watership Down for our times -- or the end of them. Kira Jane Buxton has created a crow so full of personality you won't even miss the company of humans, who are devolving at hyper-speed rates into something sub-literate and grotesque. But Buxton shows there's humor in our plight and strength in tenderness, and she portrays the intelligence and astounding beauty of the natural world in a completely fresh way. This book is a triumphant feat of imagination, and it had me believing that the bonds we've formed with our pets might help them save us after all. I'll never look at a corvid the same way again."β€”Zoe Zolbrod, author ofThe Telling and Currency and former editor at The Rumpus

"Wow. Hilarious or horrifying? Sassy or wise? Hollow Kingdom is a surprise and a marvel: a razor sharp and satisfying warning about the coming apocalypse, told by one of the most engaging narrators I have met in a long time. Good fiction makes you think. It turns you upside down and makes you realize that you recognize the world from that vantage point. Hollow Kingdom is that good fiction, and so much more."
β€”Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of Shadow Child