In Celina Myers’s Hollow, the path to self-actualization grows out of Mia Adair’s effort to reclaim agency after years of exploitation. The novel frames power as a choice rather than a supernatural gift, especially for someone treated as a tool by others. Mia begins as a passive figure shaped by her mother’s parapsychological work and later by ancient vampire families that label her an asset. Her shift from the powerless “Case 37” into a decisive matriarch shows how control emerges when she rejects outside definitions and chooses her own direction, even when that direction involves violence she never asked for.

Mia’s human life rests on a long history of powerlessness. As a child, her psychic abilities turn her into material for her mother’s famous book, which reduces her identity to a case number. When her gift fades, she feels “a bit useless—a one-hit wonder” (42) because her sense of self still revolves around something she never chose and no longer has. At the same time, her mother emotionally withdraws after her father’s death, leaving Mia to care for her younger sister. This burden shapes Mia’s stagnation, as she begins to lash out at school in her teenage years then takes an unfulfilling job at a corporate bookstore in adulthood. Her past leaves her following the needs and ambitions of others, constantly defined by the choices of those around her and leaving her with little agency.

Although Mia’s rebirth as a vampire should provide her with a newfound sense of power, it instead adds a harsher form of objectification. Mia enters a centuries-old struggle between the Bellamy and Sutton families, who treat her as a prize rather than an autonomous person. Initially, when she tries to ask questions about why she was saved or what her role will be, she is denied answers, instead forced into a trial with each family who impose their own needs upon her. This new world echoes her earlier life, since she again faces pressure to align herself with powerful groups that plan to use her. Then, when Mia finally begins to receive answers, Thea’s claim that “you are meant to be the next matriarch” (215) leaves her with little choice. Her role is presented as unavoidable and turns supposed authority into another imposed identity.

Mia changes this trajectory in the final confrontation with Elenora. She chooses to fight for the friends she has made instead of falling into the role that others outline for her. Her decision to kill Elenora fulfills a prophecy but also protects the allies she selects for herself from the two vampire families. In this scene, she rejects the roles of daughter, subject, pawn, and predestined leader and acts according to her own judgment. By taking control on her own terms, she moves from a person shaped by others’ demands into someone who defines her own fate.