The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum follows the titular character, Hollis, as he is navigating life in a rundown town where no one ever leaves. One day, Hollis becomes possessed by a spirit with unfinished business named Walt. At first, things are confusing for the both of them but they soon start to find comfort in each other in a way they both need. But can it turn into something more?

This book has such a unique premise. A boy and the spirit possessing him fall for each other. The chapters are short and snappy which makes the book fly by. The characters are well balanced and interesting. The town feels almost like another character. I know that a lot of people will love this.

I had a hard time connecting with it. I think I would have preferred if Hollis had been written in first person so that it was easier to keep him and Walt separate since they are inhabiting the same body. But that it very much just a personal preference.

I can see myself recommending this book a lot because I feel like I know the audience that will really connect with this story.

4.5 stars rounded up.

K. Ancrum has quickly become one of my favorite YA writers over the past few years for her short, snappy prose that gets right to the heart of the story she's telling. If Icarus was one of my top releases last year, then The Corruption of Hollis Brown is undoubtedly bound to be one of my top reads this year. It's entirely different than Icarus, but no less lovely.

Hollis Brown knows that he's trapped in the small town he was born in, doomed to grow old in die in the same house his family has always owned. The only potential for escape is through college opportunities far away and entirely out of his reach, even if he wanted to go. The only highlights in his life are his two best friends, Annie and Yulia, and the chance to actually feel something through fighting with his classmates. But, then, a late night encounter with a boy named Walt ends with Hollis accidentally making a deal at a crossroads, and suddenly he finds himself possessed - with no control over his body and sharing his mind with the spirit of a boy that has his own violent history with the town. As they start to take the steps to put Walt's spirit to rest, what started as an unwilling possession starts to turn into something else entirely, and maybe they don't quite want the inevitable ending they've been headed towards.

It is... very hard to summarize my thoughts on this book. It's gritty and emotional and moves at such a quick clip that I think I'll still be processing this one in the months ahead. I had this same struggle in trying to review Icarus; there's just SO much to wrap your head around that, even though you know it was the perfect book, you can't quite sum up why. It's boy meets boy, gets possessed by boy, falls in love with boy, and...? All set to the backdrop of that small American once-was industrial town that hits like a punch to the gut. Hollis is frustrating and so entirely understandable in his struggles and desperate need to just FEEL something. And then his relationship with Walt and how it all grows and develops felt so organic and twisted.

It's perfect and dark and gritty and I cannot wait to see what Ancrum comes up with next.

After reading and absolutely adoring 'Icarus" by K. Ancrum last year, I requested this on Netgalley as soon as I saw it pop up. I had really high hopes for this book, and for a good part of them, they were met. I will say that I didn't love this as much as I was hoping to though.

I felt confused on the whole "possession" aspect of the story, but that could also just be me being stupid so who knows.
I will say that while I loved the development of their relationship, it is definitely a little disturbing at times- however, that is to be expected by the description of the book and the fact that they basically share a body - so them touching each other, is really just Hollis touching himself. This didn't bother me much, but a heads up if it might bother you.
There are also trigger warnings for depression and suicidal thoughts/ideology. It was definitely a bit hard to read at times, but I think it was handled beautifully and you could tell they put a lot of thought into writing this.
Now, these little gays are the most codependent people I have ever seen. And nothing screams codependency like literally being in the same body. And good for them to be honest. I loved seeing their development of the relationship between them, and I loved seeing their love grow. Codependent unhealthy love, but love nonetheless.

My main critique is just that I was never fully absorbed into the story. I read this so slowly because I just never felt the pull to pick it up over the other books I was reading. This is definitely an intriguing story, but it also lacked a lot, especially in the middle of the book.

My first 5-star read of the year! I've never read anything like it. Prose, beautiful and sparse. Mood, soft and bewitching. Romance, sharp and electrifying. Only wish I hadn't burned through it so fast, it's a book to be savored.

Kayla Ancrum is an autobuy author for me and Hollis didn't disappoint. The love between Walt and Hollis was beautifully rendered; this is a book I plan to return to many times.

E-arc provided by Netgally

**4.5 Stars*** 8.43 on Cawpile

I have truly never read a book like this before/this kind of plot - the writing was beautiful as always and I was intrigued the whole time as to what was happening and what was going to happen. As always K. Ancrum delivered something unique and heart wrenching

K. Ancrum has a marvelous grasp of the vignette form. As with all her books, I am just so in love with the kindness and empathy of the characters, the intimacy of their friendships, the warmth of their existence and emotions. I will say this cast did not grip me as much as her other casts have- as Hollis and Walt were wonderful but did not grip me by my heartstrings as much as I would have liked. My main reason for not giving this book five stars however was how much like side characters the side characters felt. The two best friends just faded in and out of my memory in a way I didn’t necessarily care for, and I found myself annoyed by Annie and Yulia more often than endeared by them. The story focused intensely and intimately on Hollis and Walt (which makes sense as their interiority is so private and central to the plot) but it did make it so the outside world fell flat. Even if this was more of a miss for me in the end, I still found it special and kind and I will forever be reading K. Ancrum’s wonderful stories.

This was such an intense and invasive read. I'm glad it was written in 3rd-person, because I'm not sure I would've been able to finish it otherwise. Hollis and Walt's relationship was just so scarily intimate. I have never read a story like this and I had no idea what was going to happen next. Not necessarily because it was full of twists or anything, it was just such a novel concept. I do feel like the ending was a bit anticlimactic, but I wasn't mad at it or anything. I also love Ancrum's writing style. Pretty much every chapter is 1-2 pages which made for a quick read.

This book was good and really thought provoking. Hollis Brown is an outcast in his town, and is constantly being beat up for his unwillingness to censor his comments from his peers. One night he is possessed by a ghost of a boy who wants to die. At first Hollis is scared of the entire ordeal, but as he gets to know Walt, his ghost, he becomes more comfortable with the idea of letting someone else steer his life. As Hollis and Walt grow to know each other, they both find the best in the other, and decide that it's worth it to be nice, get along, and live harmoniously with others. Their relationship grows from reluctant ghost and host to one of care and love, so much so that Walt decides he wants to stay with Hollis and live life to the fullest, this overcoming his own ghosts in the process. This book makes the reader consider their own life and what makes each of us happy. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a subtle ghost story about human growth.

This book was unlike anything I'd ever read before; I loved it. Ancrum has the rare ability to bring the reader into the story completely and hold them there until the very end. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Hollis lives a mediocre life in a dead-end town, surviving by spending time with his best friends and by instigating fights. After a mysterious event takes place in an adjacent abandoned ghost town, Hollis is pulled into a situation he didn’t expect: he’s blamed for something he didn’t do. And, shortly after, being possessed by a spirit of a boy named Walt.

This book subverts expectations in its weird and wonderful take on possession and two boys falling in love, one alive and the other dead. While reconciling their own unique situation, Walt helps Hollis figure out how to live a better life, one that allows Hollis to feel known and accepted unlike he ever has before.

There were some overly stressful parts that weren’t realistic: Hollis getting blamed for something he didn’t do and for which there was no evidence; the principal getting involved in things that weren’t school-related in the slightest. I also struggled with the supposed sexual activities taking place given that they share a body. That took some intense imagination on my part and quite a bit of letting go of what I understood. Still, I’m glad they were able to express themselves given their situation.

Although some parts of this book took weird to a whole new level, I enjoyed its unique storyline, characters, and resolution. If you love Cemetery Boys, you will love The Corruption of Hollis Brown.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and K.Ancrum for providing me the arc. I feel so honored. This was my first time reading this author and it did not disappoint. I loved every single detail that shaped this book: characters, writing, story… i found it so unique and addicting to a point where I couldn’t stop reading. Just phenomenal.

Say it with my mouth, use my lungs for the air for it. Say it, Walt, I can feel it anyway, you can’t hide from me.”

Hollis Brown is stuck in a rotting small town where no one can afford to leave. Hollis’s only bright spots are his two best friends, cool girls Annie and Yulia, and the thrill of fighting his classmates. As if his circumstances couldn’t get worse, a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger named Walt results in a frightening trap. After unknowingly making a deal at the crossroads, Hollis finds himself losing control of his body and mind, falling victim to possession. Walt, the ghost making a home inside him, has a deep and violent history rooted in the town Hollis grew up in, and he has unfinished business to take care of.

Fellas, is it really homoerotic codependency if you are literally sharing the same body bc you’re possessed by a ghost? 🤨

Five books in, and K. Ancrum doesn’t miss!! Even though I’ve been slowly growing out of YA contemporary, if there is one author I will always read and enjoy, it’s K. Ancrum.

Her books have a magical realism, fairytale/fable-like vibe to them, even when they are realistic. They have an almost unreal quality to them, but they still feel so real, honest, and earnest. I loooove Ancrum’s writing style and how she builds characters and relationships, and I looooove how it’s all built on these small, one or two-page-long chapters.

Hollis Brown is the most fantastical out of all of her books, but it still features the same themes, loneliness, yearning, and teens finding love, friendship, and connection that can save you and bring you to life (in this case literally). But it’s also about dying industrial towns and how they swallow up generations and people, and how the only way through is community and looking out for one another. It’s a book about the mortifying ordeal of being known... by the spirit currently possessing your body.

This was soo tender and soft that it made me feel insane. It hasn't dethroned The Wicker King as my favorite K. Ancrum; I don't think anything will, that's one of my all-time favorite books. But it might be in second place in my overall ranking? I'm not sure I need to reread The Weight of the Stars and Icarus. But yeah tl;dr this book is wonderful go read it when it comes out in April and just read K. Ancrum's books!!!

4.5⭐️

What do you do when you fall in love with the ghost possessing you?

Hollis is a boy who runs his mouth so much that a lot of the kids in his small town hate him. When a boy who’d recently punched Hollis ends up mysteriously attacked and hospitalized, he blames Hollis. Hollis unwittingly makes a deal with a ghost named Walt, who takes possession of Hollis’s body and gets to work on making people like him.

K. Ancrum excels at writing such good, loyal friends, or people who could be good, loyal friends, if the protagonist would let them. Like Icarus, Hollis is distant, but ends up accumulating all these people who just want to help him. ❤️ I love that there are all these people who are trying to save Hollis from his own destructive habits. Hollis and Walt are also such lovely characters, which is good, because most of the book is really the two of them talking.

The setting also felt like its own character - small, dying town in Michigan, that feels suffocating due to economic hardship, and a part of town that only bold teens will (briefly) venture into because it's haunted.

I really enjoy the author's writing style, with short chapters and brief interludes. She also writes in a way that's very easy, go with the flow, and then smacks you in the face with insight.

I do think the resolution, particularly with regards to Rose Town, could have been a bit stronger, and I would have liked a better grip on Hollis's family dynamics. Also what the hell actually happened with (view spoiler)? Altogether, though, a very easy, engaging read, with great characters.

I don't think I could write a review to do this book justice. One of the most well written intimate romances and they're literally sharing a body you would think that would make that so difficult but it was so heightened. Every side character had some depth to them too. Amazing queer rep as always. There's a lot of recipes in this book that I just don't care for, but still an incredible 5 star read and some will enjoy that aspect.

Oh wow.

At first the short chapter lengths really jarred me, and I worried that I wasn't going to be able to get into the story.

But then. Then, I met Hollis and Annie and Yulia and damn was I gripped from the first page. Then I met Walt and I could not put this book down. It was the Corruption of Me as I got lost in K. Ancrum's unique and devastating writing style. The way Hollis' emotions and yearnings were portrayed truly gave me physical reactions.

To review, The Corruption of Hollis Brown follows, of course, Hollis. We meet him in the midst of his usual-- getting beat up by classmates because he pissed them off, not taking care of himself but making sure to care for his mother, and spending free time with his only two friends Yulia & Annie. I don't think it's a spoiler to mention that this book deals with possession, and when the being known as Walt enters Hollis' body, he--and Walt-- start a transformation that goes beyond the physical. Character development like never before set against the backdrop of a Midwest town left with no industry or economy, forgotten people making it work by banding together. There are a lot of lessons to be learned here and K. Ancrum's social commentary is clear-- even if it is beneath a salacious ghost possession.

I mentioned before that this book appealed to me due to the weird sexual energy that is inescapable in the live action CASPER and I was so spot on.

"Do you like our house? Is there a garden for your roses? Do you want to paint my fences white?"

Where do I start on this stunning and hypnotic story.

I've just recently dipped my toes into K. Ancrum novels and I've yet to be disappointed. But the love I have for this book surpasses any of the others I have read so far.

Ancrum does an amazing job of tapping into the raw emotions of what it is be a teenager on the brink of adulthood in such a realist way. That combination of fear and excitement you feel and the different ways in manifests in us all.

I loved Hollis Brown immediately. As a native of a Podunk town where everyone was trying to get out, I felt for him and I felt a kinship to the community he was in. The way they came together for each other and shared was inspiring and made me fall in love with the place and not just the people.

Annie and Yulia showed one of Ancrum's most defining features as a writer. The way she can weave deep and intricate friendships into the lives of her lonely characters until they are ready to face themselves. That grounding found family presence in her stories always has my heart aching for my own teenage friendships, there is just something so special about the bond you have with the people you grew up with.

And then there is Walt. A supernatural love story that starts with two boys willing to be vulnerable with each other was always going to be the exact kind of story for me. But the way these two boys find themselves within each other and hold each other through their fears and doubts to become something new and find a way forward for not just each other but the town as a whole had me sobbing and shaking with joy.

We need more deep and fulfilling queer love that feels like coming home and being undone all at once.
The kind of story that has us hoping that we too can be seen by another person.

I'll just leave you with one final thought. My absolutely favor line of the whole book.

"Turn off the light, Hollis Brown, I can see you better in the dark."

I also personally love the prose set up of K. Ancrum's novels, I know that some people can feel like the chapters at bit short but this is one of the things that makes these books so hard to put down. I want more of the magic and I'm so close to getting another chunk. It keeps me reading indefinitely. I finished
this book and Icarus in about a day because of the way the writing hooks me into the world.

If I had to pick a critique it would be that a couple times it could get a tiny bit confusing reading the conversations between Walt and Hollis, I'd reread to make sure I understood who was saying what. But that could also just be attributed to the online version. (And I wasn't mad to reread their deep conversations at all, more for me to devour)

All and all this is one of my few 5 star reads for the year.

I'm so incredibly thankful to Netgalley for the ARC read. And I can't believe I have to wait until April to buy a copy of the gorgeous book to put on my shelf.

A beautiful example of K. Ancrum's visceral writing style- raw and lyrical- it aches bone deep with longing and cuts to the quick. Each page seeps with melancholy and yearning and hope. It asks so much of what it is to live and to be alive especially in a small town haunted by the past and with no clear future ahead. It was an unflinching look at pain and hopelessness but still declared that there can be something more. You just have to choose that for yourself.
The short chapter style made this book so quick and easy to get through. I felt like I was hurtling through it the entire time even though I was desperate for it not to end. I was utterly captivated by the story and the characters (listen I am such a sucker for stories with characters that are forced to inhabit the same body and to find a way to cohabitate together). All of the character's are so vivid and well developed and I will always eat up a well written co-dependent relationship especially when you get a little weird with it. Hollis and Walt were just utterly incredible together and I devoured every moment of it.
This book is probably going to live in my head rent free forever now. Easily my new favorite K. Ancrum book (sorry Wicker King). I'm just so utterly obsessed with it.

INCREDIBLE as always!! i dont know how many more times i can emphasize how talented and compassionate k. ancrum is with her writing . the atmosphere of a small working class town and the decades of history on its land was just. haunting And community was so integral to the story…… i teared up many times
and don’t even get me started on the concept of being fully known [in every possible way, cohabiting souls , etc] with hollis and walt! OHMYGOD!!!! codependency queerness & community r genuinely the big 3 for ancrum’s writing <3 The prose always hits super emotional for me and i feel very vulnerable every time i leave one of her novels… i will say that some parts toward the latter half felt like a speedrun but that’s also just the beauty of the storytelling! Anyway i cannot WAIT to get my hands on a physical copy :]

K. Ancrum delivers yet another compelling novel. One of the book’s greatest strengths lies in its richly developed characters, each possessing a distinct and authentic voice. Hollis’s relationships—whether with his closest friends or his fiercest adversaries—are dynamic, layered, and engaging.

While the plot itself may not be particularly fast paced or action driven, the novel’s true focus is on Hollis’s internal struggle as he grapples with the unsettling reality of sharing his body with another consciousness. This premise serves as a powerful catalyst for self reflection, as Walt continuously challenges Hollis to reconsider the reckless situations that lead to his classmates beating him up. Their interactions push Hollis toward growth in a way that feels organic and compelling.

Ancrum’s handling of Hollis and Walt’s romantic relationship is particularly fascinating. Given the complexities of their shared existence, their connection is explored with nuance and sensuality, making for an unconventional yet well executed dynamic.