Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs (no spoilers)

Hollow City

Author: Ransom Riggs

Publisher: Quirk Books

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Time Travel, Historical Fiction, …

Pages: 396

Format: Paperback

September 3, 1940.

Ten peculiar children flee an army of deadly monsters.

And only one person can help them – but she’s trapped in the body of a bird.

The extraordinary journey that began in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. There, they hope to find a cure for their beloved headmistress, Miss Peregrine. But in this war-torn city, hideous surprises lurk around every corner. And before Jacob can deliver the peculiar children to safety, he must make an important decision about his love for Emma Bloom.

Hollow City draws readers into a richly imagined world of telepathy and time loops, of sideshows and shapeshifters – a world populated with adult “peculiars”, murderous wights, and a bizarre menagerie of uncanny animals. Like its predecessor, this second novel in the Peculiar Children series blends thrilling fantasy with never-before-published vintage photography to create a one-of-a-kind reading experience.

The first book is amazing and I loved it but,…

This book in my opinion was even better than the first one guys! If you got disappointed with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children because it was not horror but other than that you thought it was not a bad book? Give this one a try! IT’S SO GOOD! If you stopped in the first novel because of that, really try it again! This one is for sure creepier! FOR ME I LOVED THE FIRST ONE SUPER MUCH but this one is just such a good sequel ❤

Hollow City is a nightmare. In this one, you will NOT know what will happen next until it blows up in you face.

That said, it has definitely more action than the first one (although it started pretty slow) it had sooo many things happening afterwards that you can’t put the book down; I see the first book as an introduction to everything – the characters that we can actually see in the photos and the world that is so well described; but this one? I can’t even… So many emotions! So many things wrong with the world, so much unfairness, SO much happening.

We had the pleasure to meet the amazing peculiar children in the last novel, in this one we go with them all over the world to try to save Miss Peregrine. We meet a lot more peculiar children and we are introduced to a lot of new cool peculiarities.

There is a quest to bring the group’s ymbryne to Miss Wren, whose first name is

since she is the only ymbryne that is not captured, but it won’t be easy to find! ….

And that ending?? I NEED the third book NOW!

The Things I liked:

The journey through a war torn London was very well done, and I liked the irony of our kids making their way there on the train while so many other children were being evacuated out of the city. I think the decision to continue the story in 1940’s was awesome!
The introduction of a few more peculiars were welcomed, whether they be in the book only for a short time, or seemingly joining the group for the rest of their adventure. It’s always interesting to see what wacky peculiarities they have. The main character of Jacob also seemed like a new character, simply because as his peculiarity grow, he tends to be more confident, and less chicken than in the first book.
I won’t tell much about this part, but I appreciated that the wights had evolved a bit more to make them a more formidable presence in this entry.

The Things I didn’t like:

✘ Just like the first novel, some of the pictures used in this entry didn’t seem AS connected to the main story (unless they play a part in the next novel) as some of the others.