“We rowed out through the harbor, past bobbing boats weeping rust from their seams, past juries of silent seabirds roosting atop the barnacled remains of sunken docks, past fishermen who lowered their nets to frozenly as we slipped by, uncertain whether we were real or imagined; a procession of waterborne ghosts, or ghosts soon to be.”

From Ransom Rigg’s Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children: Hollow City.

Jacob and his peculiar (special abilities/powers) friends are on the run; their safe haven time loop has been discovered and destroyed by the wights (peculiars turned evil) and hollows (monsters that hunt peculiars), so the children have no other option but to try to find another loop.  Miss Peregrine is stuck in bird form and unable to transition back to a human, so the children are left to care for the injured headmistress.  After reading a story from a book of fairy tales, Emma leads Jacob and the others into a hidden loop.  Unfortunately, this loop is unsafe as Jacob quickly senses a hollow waiting for them; in order to survive, he must try again to gain control of his new-found peculiarity (seeing the invisible hollows).  Things go from bad to worse for the children and the responsibility to save the other children again falls primarily on Jacob’s shoulders.  All Jacob has to do is keep the children safe, find a way to return Miss Peregrine to human form, figure out the extent of his abilities, and stop the wights from wiping out peculiars, all while navigating through a war-torn Europe… what could go wrong?

Rigg’s second book in the trilogy is full of action, suspense, and heart.  The characters of the peculiar children are developed further, while the lore and details of peculiar-ness are explained in more detail.  This adds to the story, not only in understanding various elements, but also to the series as a whole; Rigg’s style allows for readers to learn with Jacob’s character in a way that makes perfect sense.  As with the first book, the real-life, vintage photographs create a layer to the story that brings it all to life.  The story is written around the photos, but in a unique and enchanting manner. Hollow City is an eery, but endearing read that will leave readers struggling to put it down.