Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Title: Hollow City 

Author: Ransom Riggs

Pages: 396

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Hollow City is the sequel to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and takes off right where the first one ended. Jacob and the other peculiars go to London to try and save their headmistress.

One of the aspects I was bothered with in the first novel, was its slow pace, and Hollow City definitely makes up for that. It is a lot more action-packed, and therefore much more exciting - it makes you want to keep on reading. Also, the first novel was rather predictable, in my opinion. Even though some events in Hollow City were too, the were much more twists and turns, making it impossible to truly know where the story was headed.
Character development is another feature which I thought was really well done in this one. While the first novel is really getting to know Jacob and generally exloring the world of the peculiars, in the sequel we learn some new things about these peculiars, as well as getting to know so many more new characters. I felt the characters were all so well explored and I loved their back-stories.
Another thing I'd call an improvement is the way in which the pictures are inserted. In the first novel, I was sometimes annoyed by the interruption as at times the pictures did not necessarily belong at that point in the story. I also felt it withheld my own imagination in the way that the pictures provided me with how I should imagine certain people or places. Even the latter problem is present in the second novel as well, this bothered me much less. This may have to do with the fact that I was used to it and expecting it as it was not too long ago that I had read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, but it was also because the pictures were always added in the proper place in the story -  you knew what they were supposed to depict.
Now, I only awarded this book .25 more stars than Miss Peregrine's. This is mainly because after I read the first one I felt overwhelmed by the world. It was so new to me and its originality was one of the reasons why I felt it earned 3.75 stars. After having read Hollow City I obviously did not feel the same - I already knew all about the world. However, I felt in this aspect the story lacked - the author could have explored the possibilities of the world he created some more.

Over all though, I truly love this novel and cannot wait for the third one to come out. Ransom Riggs has created such an interesting world and such intriguing characters - there are so many more things to find out.