Hollow — Taylor Grothe

Sawkill Girls meets The Whispering Dark in a queer YA cult horror following a recently diagnosed Autistic teen who is rescued by a charming woodcarver and becomes enmeshed in his community of outcasts.After a meltdown in her school cafeteria prompts an unwanted Autism diagnosis, Cassie Davis moves back to her hometown in upstate New York, where her mom hopes the familiarity will allow Cassie to feel normal again. Cassie’s never actually felt normal, but she craves the ease she used to have with her old friends.Cassie’s friends aren’t so eager to welcome her back. Though they extend an olive branch by inviting her on their backpacking trip to Hollow Ridge, in the upper reaches of the Adirondacks. But when a fight breaks out their first night, Cassie wakes to a barren campsite—her friends all gone.Cassie hurries along the trail, but as severe weather approaches, she nears sensory overload and is saved by a boy named Kaleb. He takes her to a compound of artists and outcasts called The Roost. As Kaleb tends to her injuries, Cassie begins to feel as if she can truly be herself. But as the days pass, the Roost’s other residents make Cassie question her instincts, with their mask-like faces and cryptic whispers. Noises in the trees grow louder, begging the question: Are the dangers in the forest, on the trail, or in the Roost itself?In a world where autistic characters rarely get to be the hero of their own stories, Cassie Davis’s one-step-back, two-steps-forward journey to unmasking makes HOLLOW as much a love letter not neurodiversity as it is a haunting tale you’ll want to read with the lights on.