Hollow City | by: Ransom Riggs

*This review will likely contain spoilers for those who have not read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Hollow City is the second installment in Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children trilogy, which fuses strange vintage photographs into the reading experience. Jacob and his peculiar new friends are on an urgent and dangerous mission: They must find a way to help Miss Peregrine return to her human form, and quickly - but that isn't the easiest things to do in 1940s Britain. The Nazi army keeps dropping bombs as monstrous hollow and wights chase after the children. As they move along their journey, they have to make decisions concerning their ethical standards, and ultimately, what they are willing to fight for.

Despite the fact that Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children really impressed me when I read it years ago as well as when I reread it earlier this year,  Hollow City wasn't as easy to appreciate. I read the beginning and ending rather quickly, but the middle took a while for a few different reasons. To be completely honest... I guess I just didn't expect this entire book to deal with trying to save Miss Peregrine. I guess I thought that would take one third of the book and then the plot would get bigger. So there's one issue. And I will freely admit that by the time I reached the halfway mark I was at an exciting time in my personal life that made this novel seem a little dull by comparison (and I think this is the first time in my whole life I can say this lovely phenomena has happened). But perhaps the most prevailing issue is that despite the singular plot goal, I just didn't feel like all the obstacles the children faced truly tied together. It felt less like plotting and more like 'let's put in obstacles to make the book longer' at times. Placing so many moments where Jacob reflects on how everything is so crazy compared to his old life also gave me this vibe.

However, I did not dislike the book overall - my feelings are generally mixed. It certainly had some good qualities. Once again I appreciated the use of old photographs to enhance the story and the fact that it takes place in the dark WWII-era Britain, and even though Jacob and Emma's romance was underplayed in many respects, I liked that Riggs kept it innocent and fluffy. Plus, I think all the abilities are really cool - especially the ones that Emma, Althea, and Olive have. Even aside from their peculiar abilities, some of the characters warm my heart... Olive is just the sweetest thing and I love how motherly Bronwyn is with her friends!

But what truly made me like this book better by the time I reached the end are the twists. A few things are either discovered or occur that I never saw coming - I gasped at a couple moments. And the cliffhanger! It was a bit of a frustrating place to leave us hanging, but I thing Riggs built a solid foundation for the trilogy's conclusion, Library of Souls, which just came out this year. I anticipate that it will be the most action-packed of the series if this is going where I think it's going.

Hollow City, in short, has some prominent good points and prominent not-so-good points. I wish I could have liked it as much as the first installment of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, but I'm hopeful for the next book, Library of Souls.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children | by: Ransom Riggs

Jacob's grandfather has always showed him the most peculiar old photographs and told him strange stories to match, but how could he ever believe fairy tales of such sorts? After all, his grandfather's state of mind was questionable due to experiences during World War II that surely traumatized him. In his need to find the truth about these odd photographs, Jacob takes a trip to an island outside Great Britain, where his grandfather once lived in an old orphanage there. Meanwhile, he finds that there is more to the orphanage than one could ever imagine, that what may seem absolutely crazy is reality. For this is no typical orphanage; it's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and while exploring it's remains Jacob finds himself in an otherworldly adventure.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is Ransom Riggs' debut novel, and I must say, it was put together very uniquely. I'm not just talking about the story itself, but the idea of putting in old photographs (some slightly manipulated to fit the story's purposes) throughout the book. As a book lover and a photography lover, I was quite intrigued.

This book is naturally spooky with its rainy, gloomy setting (not to mention the ties to World War II). It probably would have stayed eerie even without the monsters and children with strange abilities. However, the characters themselves didn't really freak me out, I enjoyed them. All of them are capable of wondrous things, each with an ability unique to them. Some are unusually strong, some levitate. I wouldn't want to anger any of them, but they all seemed to be generally nice people. Jacob was a pretty good main character. Even though he was an unhappy rich boy, he came off as very down-to-earth and made me laugh aloud when reading, particularly towards the beginning of the story.

On a darker note, Ransom Riggs wrote about the grieving process that Jacob went through quite impressively. I was so surprised to see how this aspect of death ended up being so reasonably written. From previous reading experiences, I have found that most authors don't do well with describing grieving characters. It seems that they only show a couple of emotional spurts that are written ineffectively, almost like they're not real, giving me little to no effect. Ransom Riggs was an exception because he's a great writer and did his job well.

The only major complaint I've been hearing about this novel is its ending. People claim it doesn't have one. Due to prior reading expereinces I have found that when people say things like that, they aren't looking through the right spectacles. In this case, there isn't a conclusion to the obvious large problem now at hand; however, Jacob comes to a conclusion of the dilemma he'd been facing for a while and finally figures out what he wants to do with his life and where he truly feels he belongs. That, my friends, is an ending. A good ending.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is different. It's a fun adventure filled with mystery that any age group can enjoy.

4.5/5 Stars


Riggs, Ransom. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Quirk Books
2011