Hollow City (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #2)

by Ransom Riggs

Like its predecessor, this second novel in the Peculiar Children series blends thrilling fantasy with vintage photography to create a one-of-a-kind reading experience.

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.

• ISBN10: 1306914620
• ISBN13: 9781306914628
• Publish Date: 1 January 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 24 June 2015
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Quirk Books
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Hillary]

After reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children I could not wait to read Hollow City. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children left us on a cliffhanger. I was hoping that the second book would divulge all the info that I had from the first book but this book only adds MORE mysteries and questions.

I felt like I really connected with the people in the book. I am not sure if it is because I am deaf and have bipolar and i always felt "different" when I was younger but this is a book that I wish I could have read in my teen years. Being Deaf and able to talk I also felt like I was torn between two worlds like Jacob feels. I thought it was interesting how he dealt with that and even how some of the repercussions of his choices.  The book does not shy away and make everything all happy in the end but rather explores different issues and how they affect the children.

Despite it being a fantasy the world building was so good that it was completely believable. Ransom Riggs has some serious talent! Myths and old stories were woven seamlessly into a story that transported you to an alternate world. I could picture this world clearly in my mind.

I read this on my nook simple touch so I couldn't really see the pictures in the book. I am going to get a dead tree copy or maybe when I get my kindle fire for Christmas I will get a copy of that. This was the only drawback that I had. Other than that this was a near perfect book. I sooooo can't wait until the next book comes out.

This review was originally posted on Adventures in Never Never Land

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

I would like to start this review by saying that I absolutely LOVE this series. I fell in love with Miss Peregrine’s when I read it the first time, especially because of all the ‘creepy’ pictures. I was told that it was a horror book, but I ended up not being scared of anything at all, it was more just a nice story with some ‘scary’ pictures added to it.

When Hollow City was announced, I got really excited, because I just wanted to know how the story went on. I had a bit of a reading slump since the end of December, so it was a bit hard for me to get myself to read on, but when I did the book got more and more thrilling as I read.

The Action – This book has quite some action, because Jacob and his group of Peculiar friends are being hunted by Wights and Hollowgast (I caught myself reading Holocaust a lot in the beginning though). Those action moments were the moments that really made me want to continue reading the story, they were just so thrilling!

The Characters + Peculiars – Of course we have the original characters from the first book (Jacob, his Peculiar friends from Cairnholm and Miss Peregrine in bird form). We met a lot of other characters as well, some including peculiar animals, a bunch of Gypsy’s, and a girl whose Peculiar powers made me think of Elsa (from Frozen).

My favourite characters that we met in this book have got to be the animals, the first thing I said was ‘how weird, there’s a talking dog?!’ and then I remembered what kind of book I was reading. I really loved all those animals, especially the emu-raffe!

The Romance – Like the summary says, there’s a bit of a romance going on in this book, and I loved every second of it. I was rooting for them, and I can safely say that I ship it, a lot!

The Pictures – I fell in love with all the pictures in this book! There was one pictures though, that actually scared me; and that was a picture of a clown. I am really scared of clowns, and when I read about a clown in the story, I KNEW that there was going to be a picture of said clown. I read that page with my hand over the picture, and I was happy when I could flip the page!

There was another picture, which had a Dutch sentence on it, I am not sure if it was the same sentence as Millard translated (“From the mouths of our elders comes a fountain of wisdom”), but the part of the sentence that I could read on the picture said “Dit is Hans Worst”, which literally translates to : “This is Hans Sausage”, so that made me laugh a bit. (There was another part of writing on that picture, but I couldn’t read what it said).

The Plot – In this book, the peculiars have to make it to London, to find another Ymbryne and get her to restore their own. I enjoyed reading about their adventure, their meeting with the Gypsy’s, the train journey to London, Jacob’s Peculiar power developing; I just enjoyed it a lot! I think I like this book a bit more than Miss Peregrine’s, to be honest, because this book happens in more places than just Cairnholm.

But there was a plot-twist near the end, that actually made me gasp. I had NEVER expected that and now I’m sitting here with all these feelings, oh my gods!

The Writing – The writing was amazing, just like with Miss Peregrine’s. I really loved Ransom Riggs writing, and I am planning on reading his other book, Talking Pictures, as well.

In the end, I loved this book to bits, and I can’t wait for the next book, because I NEED to know what is going to happen now!