Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Title: Hollow City (Miss Peregrine #2)
Author: Ransom Riggs
Pages: 416
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal, Fiction
Source: Owned e-book

Rating: A-

Review: In Hollow City, the story of Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children changes pretty dramatically. There is a lot less focus on getting to know each child, even the main character, and a great deal more focus on the plot. Things are getting rather desperate for the children as they try to find a way to save Miss Peregrine from becoming a bird permanently. Of course, there are more creepy pictures (though I found them to be less interesting this time around, perhaps because the newness had worn off), and the impossible continues to become the possible.

The tone is a much heavier, more serious and dire, not only because of the trials the children are facing, but also because they have fallen out of the loop and begun moving forward in the time period they had been avoiding, leaving them wading their way through a world war that devastates the region. The scenes directly related to conveying the horrors of that war were perhaps the greatest surprise to me. I wasn’t expecting to pick up this book and read such heart-wrenching depictions of the war, but it was some of the best writing in the entire book. Better even than anything in the first. And the twist at the end requires picking up the third book at some point.

If you enjoyed the first in this series (as I did), I suspect you’ll enjoy the second book even more (as I did), so long as you aren’t expecting quite so much whimsy.

4 Replies to “Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs”

  1. I LOOOOOVED this book! It was so good and, in my opinion, made a great series even greater! I couldn’t put the book down and I wholly agree with everything you said in your review! Ironically enough, I’m planning to write my own review of the book in the coming week! Great review 🙂

    • I have to admit, for some reason I tend to always love the second book more than the first. Maybe it’s because the characters are fleshed out in first books and by the second book, the writer and the reader are more entrenched, and the plot thickens. Especially true in a trilogy, at least for me.

      Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting!

    • No dull moments necessarily, but some parts were a little slower than others, and some parts were a little less interesting. The talking animals bit was probably the least appealing to me (which is strange because I’ve read plenty of other books with talking animals and enjoyed that aspect immensely!). What I felt most acutely was sadness around the scenes where they focused on the ravaging of the war.

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