“My sister’s eyes were so black, they looked like polished river stones. She was fourteen then, and already the most beautiful creature I could imagine. I wanted to peel the skin from her body and wear it draped over mine.” 

House of Hollow’s first pages open with fairy tale/supernatural elements, such as Grey’s black eyes in this simile. Iris’s internal thoughts highlight her admiration and envy of Grey, and cleverly foreshadow her changeling identity—with the Hollow sisters’ skin being that of the original Hollow girls.

“Dark, dangerous things happened around the Hollow sisters.” 

This sentence captures the novel’s dark fairy tale tone and the trope of “weird sisters.” Iris, Vivi, and Grey share unnatural abilities that attract strangeness, including their assumed kidnapping.

“Grey knew her power and brandished it forcefully. [...] Grey was an enchantress who looked like sex and smelled like a field of wildflowers… [...] She walked home alone at night, always beautiful, sometimes, drunk, frequently in short skirts or low-cut tops. She did this without fear. [...]

She moved through the world like no other woman I knew.

‘What you don’t understand,’ she said to me once when I told her how dangerous it was, ‘is that I am the thing in the dark.’”

These specific details about Grey showcase her enchanting and vicious nature. Unlike her sisters, who don’t weaponize their beauty or intoxication, Grey uses both freely, unafraid of anyone or anything because she knows her immense power.