Hollow City is Ransom Riggs’ sequel to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Hollow City was a really wonderful book that is creepy, mysterious and thrilling and it has photographs that are usually found in antique fairs. The photographs being one of the key factors that makes this book and it’s predecessor so unique. These strangely developed photographs are the type of relics you would find in an attic of a creepy old abandon building in the middle of who knows where. Personally, it was the idea of a book with pictures that made me pick up Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Hollow City follows the same format of the first book, beautiful attention to detail, on the cover, on the paper and of course on its photographs. The most enjoyable part of the photographs is that they do not appear until after your finish reading the passage that describes the photographs. I like playing the game of “Is my mental image like the one on the photo?” usually it is because Riggs does an expectaculiar job describing every single new character and new scenery with excruciating detail (much like J.K Rowling).

Your mind slowly creates the scene and when you reach the page with the photography the scene in your mind enhances ten times more.

Right where Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children stops Hollow City picks it right up. There are no time lapses like most sequels tend to do. The reader continues on the journey with Jacob and the peculiar children as they are trying to help Miss Peregrine return to her human form.

In the previous book the reader had to be guided by Jacob as he tried to unmask the mystery of the peculiar children. The mystery of the stories that Jacob’s grandfather implanted in his mind.

 In this book the reader becomes peculiar, much like Jacob and the rest on the children, and sits in the rowboats trying to figure out how to get to London.

I do not want to spoil the story; for once I give my opinions and feelings about Hollow City then Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will be ultimately ruined. So if you are reading this right now, yes I am talking to you, and have not read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children please do yourself a favor and stop. Stop reading my words and get a copy of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and once you are done snatch a copy of Hollow City. But once you are done with the first book please return to me.

I assume if you are still reading you have already read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. If you haven’t….this is your last warning.

The loop has been destroyed, Miss Peregrine has been rescued from the Hollows and Wights, and the children are stuck in the middle of a body of water trying to reach main land Great Britain.

Jacob and Emma being the leaders of the now homeless children (not much to Enoch’s liking) try their best to keep the children safe.

Jacob’s leadership role is what made me enjoy his character much more than before. He goes through a massive character development as his life and the life of his fellow peculiar friends are in danger. He grows up and matures as he has learned how to use his newly developed peculiar gift to keep everyone safe from the Hollows. Even though he matures, the scared child inside him still lives, but this time he does not let it get the best of him. Jacob realizes that fear is part of his life now, and he has to learn to use it in his favor. Which is god-flipping-tastic. I love character development.

In Hollow City Riggs allows the reader to learn more intimate details about the other children. You learn more about Bronwyn’s motherly instincts, Horace’s insecurities, Olive’s innocence, Enoch’s rotten attitude, Hugh’s age and power and Millard’s intelligence. It is no longer just about Jacob trying to figure if he is going insane or not, but about a cast of characters trying to survive as they deal with their own inner demons.

Personally that is my favorite part of any story, learning about the characters and watching them grow as they handle the situations that are thrown their way.

I have nothing to complain about Hollow City, other than the ending. The massive plot twist Ransom Riggs decided to punch the readers with. I did not see it coming and it made me angry because catching plot twists are usually my superpower.

If you, my sweet reader, have not finished reading Hollow City and want to catch the twist…

Let’s just say…would Miss Peregrine really murder a pigeon whom is part of The Tales?

There are many reasons why a book is special, for me the book has to have a way of making you see things in a way you have never even thought of before. Whether it is spiritually, intellectually, or mentally.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak hit the nail on mentally.

The last book that made me pause, and thoroughly think, “What am I doing with my life” was If I Stay by Gayle Foreman.

In this story we explore World War II Germany, and through Death’s eyes we watch a young girl by the name of Liesel Meminger, a foster child living in the poor neighborhood in Munich.

Liesel is the famous book thief that caught Death’s eye while he collected the souls of the fallen. He first met her when he collected the soul of her younger brother and caught her in the act of stealing her first book The Grave Digger’s Handbook.

I have never read a book where I can say that the narrator is completely reliable. He has no real attachments to this girl. He is Death; he has few emotions towards humans but even so he still feels for them. He feels: curiosity, pity, happiness and sadness. The most un-human character was the most human. (Does that make sense?) He has human-like emotions, but he is not allowed to be part of humanity.

Death was blunt with all the characters in story and even forewarned that they were all going to die. He also forewarned us of all the major events that were going to happen and gave us as readers’ small glimpses of how it was going to occur.

 There was some foreshadowing, by the first couple chapters you are already aware of the characters who will die by the end and it was heart breaking because you end up growing attached to a few them.

It was the worst feeling in the world watching yourself fall in love with a character knowing that he or she was not going to survive the story.

But I guess that was why The Book Thief was so special, you were Death, and you watched people live their daily lives unaware that you were aware that it was going to be over soon.

Liesel, Max, Rudy, Papa, Mama, Tommy. All these characters made it into my heart and watching most of them die was a painful experience.

I do not wish to give much of the story away, because The Book Thief is a piece of literature that everyone should read, much like 1984.

It is a story that will survive the test of time, because it creates awareness in the reader that life is unexpected and you never know when it will end. It can end in your sleep, like for most citizens of Himmel Street, or on your journey to someplace new. It can all end unexpectedly, not only your life but also the lives of people who you hold dear, it can end, and it may end filled with regrets.