The Mystery of Hollow Places is a deft little emotional mystery, featuring a likable teenage protagonist unraveling the mysterious disappearance of both her parents, one in her past and one in her present. It's about love, loss, mental illness, and the slippery illusion of self.

[W]ith enough time and the right conditions, precious stones could grow in hollow places.

Imogene Scott is seventeen and doesn't remember her mother, who left when Imogene was very young. All she really has of her is the fairytale-esque story her father told her every night as a child about how they met and fell in love. The centerpiece of this story is a stone heart, purportedly from the chest of Imogene's maternal grandmother, a representation of the illness that closed her off to the world. Imogene and her father are very close, and even the relatively recent addition of Lindy, their former therapist and her father's new wife.

The book starts with Imogene's father disappearing, leaving no note or explanation to his whereabouts except half of her grandmother's stone heart. Both Lindy and Imogene are distraught, but it is Imogene who decides to start with the clue the stone heart provides: she is sure that her father is looking for her mother. With her beautiful best friend Jessa in tow, Imogene starts piecing together parts of her mother's past from vague clues.

Imogene is a likable character. She's an introverted bookworm, content to spend time with her father or alone reading, particularly if the books were written by her father. Her mother's disappearance has left her with insecurity and fear related to abandonment. Imogene thinks her best friend spends time with her perhaps out of misguided childhood loyalty rather than simply because Jessa loves her. Imogene is mature and clever, but self-aware enough to recognize that she is still a child, especially when she allows herself to daydream that she will locate her mother and her father together and they will all be a family again, happy in their new roles.

I could forgive my mother for being cursed, and lonely and troubled waters. All of that made sense. But I don't think I'll be able to forgive her if she's happy.

Imogene is flawed but earnest, and I liked that. She doesn't serve as a symbol of resistance like the heroines of The Hunger Games or Red Queen, she doesn't have the highly sexed dark, pseudo-wit of teen murder mystery protagonists, she's anxious and self-conscious but smart and driven. She draws heavily on her father's books for inspiration in tracking down her mother, I thought that was a really nice character point as it really showed the closeness of Imogene and her father.

The Mystery of Hollow Places uses such strong metaphors for depression, weaving them in carefully in many places like the stories Imogene's father tells and the ways Imogene relates to everyone.

I get closing up your heart because you're afraid to look inside and find out it's hollow. I get choosing to be alone because you're afraid that if the choice is out of your hands, you'll simply be lonely, and alone is okay, it's almost cool, in a way.

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This review can also be found on my blog.
cw: portrayals and discussion of bipolar disorder and severe depression

This was my second Rebecca Podos book (my first being her 2017 release Like Water) and it was just as great as I had hoped it would be. I was honestly shocked when I got to the end and realized that this was her debut novel. This was one of those books that sucked me right in and filled me with emotion. Following Imogene on her journey felt both meaningful and real. It was easy to see where her thoughts, feelings, and coping mechanisms (or lack thereof) came from. The story follows Imogene as she attempts to find her long-lost mother and, in turn, her newly missing father. While she has little in the way of clues, between her wits and the assistance of her best friend Jessa she starts out on a path that will impact her life forever.

I thought Imogene was a sympathetic, believable main character and enjoyed being inside her head. While her constant Sherlock references wore on me a bit, I understood the point being made. Her relationship with Jessa was appropriately complicated, I liked the reference to symbiosis as I think we all have friendships that rely on shared exchanges like these. There were some romantic undertones between Imogene and Jessa’s brother, Chad, but I think this was well-balanced and certainly wasn’t anything close to the main focus of the story.

I really enjoyed the portrayal of Imogene’s non-traditional family structure. She spent most of her life living alone with her father, who struggled with bouts of severe depression where his daughter had to fend largely for herself. Her mother left before she could remember and exists only in the peripheries of scattered photographs. Lindy, her stepmother, is a family therapist and recent addition to the family. To be honest, I never grew to like Lindy very much. While I could absolutely see where she was coming from and didn’t actively disliked her, I just didn’t think I was given enough to really develop much in the way of positive feelings toward her -- but that could definitely have just been me.

The only downside was that I didn’t love the end. There was a climax that I enjoyed, but after that I felt like I was just skimming the last bit to finish out the book. It was sort of like in movies where they have the on-screen text to explain what happened to each of the characters in the aftermath of the main plot. I personally didn’t feel that it added much, although I’m not sure what I would have suggested as an alternative.

Overall, though, this was an excellent read that I would highly recommend to lovers of contemporary YA, as well as those who like a bit of mystery in their books. I’m really excited to see what Rebecca Podos comes out with next, as she’s proven herself to be quite a strong writer! I think this is one that I’ll definitely be thinking back to in the future. ( )

At this story's opening, seventeen-year-old Imogene recounts the bedtime stories her father (a former pathologist and now popular medical mystery writer) had often told her about an autopsy he'd performed years before on a woman, who was Imogene's grandmother. He had found within the body a heart of stone, and upon opening a dark seam in the heart he found crystals within. The woman who afterwards arrived to identify the body later became Imogen's mother. But years later Imogene's mother went missing. Imogene's successful mystery-writer father eventually recovered from this loss and remarried, so Imogene now has a stepmother. Once Imogene's dad suddenly disappears, the stone-heart artifact he kept for so long comes into Imogene's possession. But she has read all her father's books and believes she's capable of finding him, and hopes to locate her long-lost mother too. Imogene enlists the aid of her best friend, Jessa, and also Chad, Jessa's handsome college-boy brother. And so the search begins.

This tale with the audiobook's narration by Emma Galvin are extremely compelling. Its quick pacing effortlessly moves along as it skillfully weaves in backstory. The heart of stone, for me, was an immediate hook. The well-rounded characters and especially in Imogene's first-person account -- where the narrator's (Emma Galvin) voice and spot-on interpretation adroitly heightens the tension -- had interested me so that I just couldn't pull myself away until the satisfying conclusion. Along with lessons about friendship, the story presents issues about living with mental illness that's handled subtly and not too overdone in this excellent coming of age book. ( )

I don't think I would've liked this book so much if I hadn't really liked the main character so much.

Imogene Scott has been told the same story about her mother since she was a little girl. Her father was a forensic pathologist called in to examine a body, an elderly woman with a peculiar heart. When the woman's daughter comes in to identify her he is left awestruck thus beginning their love story. At least that's what her dad always told her. But that woman, her mother, ended up leaving them behind though they never spoke about it as something negative. The only thing they have left from her is the stone found in the body that brought the two of them together.

Some years later and Imogen's father is gone, straight up left with no note telling anyone where he was and she takes up the task to find him. He left her a clue about where he was headed or at least she is certain that he meant for her to follow him on the search for her mother.

I don't know what I was expecting when I picked up this book. I'll be honest I didn't even read the summary or look for some type of blurb. The cover had me hooked and I thought it could be a mystery of some sort. In many ways it was. Within the book, we discover many things (other than the obvious where TF is her father??): the type of woman Imogene's mother was, the type of man Imogene's father became after being left behind, and who Imogene will choose to be.

As I've stated in the very beginning I enjoyed reading about Imogene and the growth she experiences in this book. She goes from the bookish loner type to opening up to her best friend Jessa and allowing her to help out in the search. Her eyes are opened up to the world around her once her father's books are no longer her entire reality which helps her get the guy she's pined for since forever. I'll admit I didn't like her very much in the beginning but there was a moment when she spoke with her stepmother where she realized that this woman who has cared for her for so long was not the bad guy that made me think back and appreciate the character's arc. After that, I couldn't think of anything that really turned me off to her. ( )

Imogene's parents met when her father, a forensic pathologist, brought her mother in to identify a body. Her father became a famous mystery writer, and her mother left them behind. Now Imogene's father is the one who has left, and she decides she must use all she has learned from his books to find him and solve the mystery of her mother.

Podos has a beautiful writing style that really flows, and lends an almost surreal quality at times to what is definitely a strong mystery. I wanted to know what happened to Imogene's parents, why they left, where they were, and what Imogene would find.

Imogene is a very strong character, that you can't help but root for. Podos made me feel invested in the choices Imogene made, and what would happen to her.

There really wasn't anything I didn't like. This was a strong entry in the young adult mystery genre.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's a well-written, compelling young adult mystery that will have you invested. ( )