Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

Douglas Smith’s The Hollow Boys is the first in a fun new YA superhero fantasy series. Smith doesn’t stray too far from classic superhero tropes, and quite honestly it really works here. The one unusual quirk? Will Dreycott, our main hero, suffers from severe agoraphobia! Luckily Will’s superpowers, dream walking, don’t require him to go outside. But of course not everything can be done in dreams. This is a fast paced adventure that while definitely falling into the YA category is a story sure to entertain almost anyone. 4.5 stars. I hope the wait for book 2 won’t be long. Thanks to Spiral Path Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an ARC of The Hollow Boys.

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The Hollow Boys is the first in a new trilogy. The Dream Rider Saga start with us meeting 17 yr old, Will, who will not leave his house after his parents go missing on an expedition. Will is the Dream Rider, a hero that can walk through dreams hunting criminals, he takes those dream adventures and has created a comic that funds his secluded lifestyle. He meets Case, an orphan, when she breaks into his tower to escape a kidnapping. Case and her brother both have powers, she can hear voices that warn her of danger and her younger brother can fade. Together Case and Will are trying to find who is kidnapping street kids. This was a good start to a new series and has me intrigued on what will happen next. 3.5 stars.

*Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an E-ARC of "The Hollow Boys" by Douglass Smith!
*The story evolves around Will Dreycott, who's a seventeen years old boy with a famous graphic novel series. Everyone knows him, but they don't k ow that Will is actually The Dream Rider, the series' main character.
Eight years ago, Will's parents disappeared while on an expedition, leaving him with no memories from it, powers to enter other people's dreams and the vivid memory of a smell.
Also Will can't go out of his house, due to his comeback from the expedition.
But street kids start to vanish, and an evil force appears in Dream, Will's realm.
With thw help of Case, a street kid who broke into his home to escape being kidnapped, and her brother, Fader, Will must stop this evil, even if her can't exit his home.
*This book had me hooked from the beginning! Will isn't the normal seventeen years old that you're expecting, surprising with good morals, jokes and a strong built character. Case is also a little different, due to her tough life on the streets. The characters had a strong development throughout the story, and their evolution played out in a strong manner, showing the trials that they went through without making them wear.
*Overall, this book gets a 5 out of 5 stars from me!

I did really enjoy this book and can't wait to read the second book. The whole reason as to why I wanted to read it in the first place was due to the fact that I work with the homeless youth population and for the most part I do think that the representation is good. The only thing is it took Case less than a few days to fully trust someone. That doesn't happen in real life, but that just might be me knit picky due to working in the field. Another thing that took away from the story was the relationship between Case and Will. It feels like it was added for filler and took away from the over arching plot (the final part was when it should have started). As someone who enjoys looking into dreams and dream studies, the way the author built upon what was already known about dreams was good. With all that said, I can't wait to see what happens in the next book.

Wow, this was good. My oldest grandchildren voted this one of their best books of the year. I found it very exciting and could really relate (and be concerned about) the main characters. We really need a doogle and a poogle in our lives !

Supers novels are often badly written, but this one is not. It's well edited, even in the pre-release version I got for review via Netgalley, with engaging characters, good pacing and a twisty plot.

Sure, the villains are a touch cartoonish, and there are a few well-worn tropes - the loss of the mentor, the villain's mistreated minion having a heel-face turn, and the like. One of the protagonists has what I call a "superhero job," supposedly important but in practice able to be set aside (or even made use of, in an unrealistically compressed timeframe) in order to tend to the plot. But the strengths well outweighed these minor weaknesses for me.

There are two protagonists, both of whom get to be effective in resolving the plot. Case, a street kid with a mysterious but helpful Voice in her head, who fiercely protects her little brother with the help of his ability to fade from people's notice, is just as capable as Will, the billionaire teenage heir who has added to his missing parents' fortune with the popular graphic novel he writes. Said graphic novel features a fictionalized version of his own superhero persona, the Dream Rider; he's able to astral project into the realm of Dream, and find out, for example, where kidnapped children are in order to alert the police.

When a body-stealing sorcerer, a Manx witch, and an old Tibetan monk turn up in their lives and unwittingly bring them together, Case and Will team up, hook up, and act with courage, intelligence and resourcefulness, risking everything for the sake of others. This is just what I look for in protagonists, and along with the capable writing makes this a very successful book as far as I'm concerned. It easily makes the Gold tier of my Best of the Year list.