DNF Review – The Hollow City (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, Book 2) by Ransom Riggs (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Quirk Books
Release Date: January 14, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1594746123
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series
Source: Copy from Publisher to review
Rating: 3/5 stars
I got a copy of this book from the publisher to review. I read Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children last year and really enjoyed the quirky pictures throughout. However, I struggled with this second book quite a bit. I actually started it multiple times and finally this last time I was determined to read this thing…and I failed. I just could not stay engaged in the story and kept falling asleep, I got about 200 pages into the book (more than a fair try) and gave up.
This book picks up right where the last one stopped. Having survived the battle on the island, Jacob and the other Peculiar Children are on a mission to return Miss Peregrine to her original form. They must travel to London in the year 1940, avoiding Germans and bombs to finally obtain their goal.
As mentioned above I struggled with this book. It just didn’t have the novelty that the first book in this series did for me. The pictures in this book are much more run of the mill vintage pictures and not nearly as peculiar as in the first book. I felt like some parts of the story were there just so that a picture could be put in and that the pictures weren’t necessarily there to enhance the story.
To be fair it’s around Christmas time, I have a lot of books to read, and I have a fairly low tolerance for reading books I don’t enjoy right now. That being said I did read a couple hundred pages in and I can honestly say at that point I was still not even a little bit curious as to where this story was going.
It’s not a badly written book, there is some good imagery in here. I liked the pictures but I just felt like the story was moving very slow. It’s also a strange blend of fantasy, time travel, and wartime horrors and I am still having a very hard time understanding what the Hollows are and picturing what they look like.
Additionally I had a lot of trouble remembering which peculiar children were which (and there are a lot of them). Again, to be fair there is a guide in the front with their pictures and a short descriptions of the characters. I referenced that many, many times while reading the first couple hundred pages so I am glad it was there.
In the end I just didn’t care enough about the story and it was too difficult to read and stay focused. After falling asleep while reading this a number of times I gave up. I have too many fantastic books to read and don’t have time to spend on one I just don’t enjoy.
Overall this is an okay book but not nearly as interesting as the first book in this series. The pictures aren’t nearly as intriguing, there really isn’t an engaging mystery here, there are a ton of characters to keep track of, and the story moves slowly. I will not be reading anymore of this series.
