REVIEW: Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

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My Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

Picking up right where Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children left off, Hollow City throws the reader right into the action. For that reason, you may want to read this trilogy all at once.

Jacob and the rest of the peculiar children have taken to the open sea, attempting to escape the monsters pursuing them on their little island and also to get help for their beloved headmistress, Miss Peregrine, who is unwillingly stuck in bird form. But trouble continues to follow the children on their trek to London, and their perilous journey is rife with danger and adventure. When Jacob made the decision to stay in 1940, he didn't realize at the time how important he'd become to their survival. Will he ever get back to his parents in the present? Or will the past consume him, body and soul?

Though this installment contained all the thrilling adventure of the first, I liked it only slightly less, if only for a certain little plot twist that irked me. I can't say much without giving too much away, except this: How can such a large group, both children and adult, be overcome by one wily wight after they've managed to take down an entire army of them? There, that shouldn't have given too much away. But it felt like the whole book was a sequence of them running from the monsters, escaping or killing said monsters, rinse and repeat. Fortunately, it was kept interesting by the fact that circumstances were drastically different each time, but I think this volume might've suffered slightly from middle-book-itis. Note I still loved it enough to give it an 8, but it was almost a 7 for that reason, when I gave the first one a 9. I'm looking forward to reading Library of Souls next to see how it all wraps up.