Books: Library of Souls By Ransom Riggs (2015)

Library of Souls picks up where Hollow City left off, with 16 year-old Jacob Portman and teen looking Emma Bloom (who is well over 100) following the vanishing trail of their kidnapped friends, who’ve disappeared into the Devil’s Acre, the most dangerous loop in all of peculiardom. Here are the outcasts of the Peculiars, the exiles, the criminals, and the drug addicts that all exist within the dark heart of the paradise, along with the  villainous wights. But all may not be lost, as Jacob and Emma encounter an unlikely benefactor, who with his ingenious loop-making machine, will finally be able help them make their final stand in place where the fate of every peculiar children will be decided once and for all.

With the conclusion, author Ransom Riggs gives us a satisfying, tense, often strange and moving ending to a series that rose above the mere expectations of being just another Harry Potter tale. We get a wonderful voice in Jacob, who comes off as a very convincing with a believable transformation from awkward young man to the Chosen One (yes, I know. But there is only so many ways to tell these tales). Still this X Men meets many British World War II Costume Dramas meets Doctor Who (the whole Panloopticon reminds me of the serial Carnival of Monsters) rises above the rest of books in this genre. Along with those sometimes creepy photographs, Ransom prose work brings together a fun, dark tale that brims with excitement.

Books: Hollow City By Ransom Riggs (2014)

The world of the "peculiars” is a persecuted subset of children and adults who have sideshow-style abilities and abnormalities. Introduced in Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, readers learn of them through Jacob Portman, who discovers the tales his grandfather told of him of strange folks who are live in some form of arrested development, living in a “loop” that is September 3, 1940 over and over again, was far from mere children stories. 

Now, with his grandfather dead and Jacob, having “lived” with the peculiars for a few months (and has discovered he may actually be one himself), joins them in their fight against those who would see them destroyed.

Hollow City picks up just after the cliffhanger ending of the first book, Jacob and his nine friends (including Miss Peregrine, their protector, stuck in bid form) are adrift on water, struggling to find land on which to put more miles between them and their pursuers, the blank-eyed wights and hollowgasts. The fellowships goal is to find the one ymbrynes, Miss Wren, who can transform Miss Peregrine back into human form. But they’re stuck in 1940, and that means becoming part of the events of World War II, which means dodging bombs, debris and just ordinary folks trying to help them. 

With this second volume, Ransom Riggs allows the characters to grow and become more human and not just an assembly of their various abilities. Love blooms for Jacob and affection for the survival of others brings new dimensions all. And I like that the allegory aspect of novel, with children fleeing their London homes as they did in during the bombings of that city by Hitler’s Nazi’s –and then there is the whole parable of the monsters that pursue the children being much like the stromtroopers of that era, with their love of cruelty and gruesome torture.

And while many might draw parallels to Harry Potter, I say so what. It’s an excellent book, and while it is fantasy, Riggs clearly realizes that you must always have reality slipping in between the cracks. Because reality is a very scary thing at times.

Books: Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (2011)

I came across Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children in June of 2011, a month before Borders announced they were closing down for good. There was that odd, creepy cover with the floating girl, and then those weird and freaky vintage photos inside made me want to read the book. But I didn’t buy it and by the time the stores closing sales began, other books began occupying my mind (I hid a lot of books, which was fun, because the people running the closing –and my stick-in-the-mud GM- where on the look-out for employees stashing books). The thing with me and books is the real interesting ones, the more off-beat ones, have a tendency to stay with me. And this one did. 

But Miss Peregrine’s was to stay in hardcover for two years, only to finally see a paper edition this month. So I bought it at Target, excited to see it and read it. Now that I’ve completed, I’ve got say while the book is far from original, it’s still fun. 

Jacob's grandfather likes to tell these stories about how when he was a child he was sent away from home to an orphanage on a Welsh island, he was accompanied by other "peculiar" children and supposedly kept safe from "monsters". As Jacob grows from wondrous child to petulant teen he realizes that his grandfather's tales are probably just tall tales. Then his grandfather is horrifically killed in an "accident" and Jacob heads off to Wales to visit his grandfather's old home as a form of closure. But it soon becomes apparent that his grandfather was telling the truth all this time.

While the novel is just like many other YA novels of the supernatural that have come out since the Harry Potter series –it does follow the basic color wheel of plotting –Riggs does develop the characters well and creates some really bad monsters. The use of odd vintage photos enhances the story as well. 

Plus, it has time travel, and heaven knows, I love time travel stories.

Overall, a nice start to a series; book two is scheduled for January.