It is time to return once again to the land of the peculiar. This time I am going over Hollow City, the second book in Ransom Riggs series Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children. Having narrowly escaped the hollows and wights in their own loop the children now have to travel to London during the time of WWII in order to find Miss Wren. Not only is she one of the only known ymbrynes to still be free but she can help Miss Peregrine who seems to be stuck in her bird form. Led by Jacob, Emma and Bronwyn the children travel through Southern England trying to evade more hollows and wights and figure out where to find Miss Wren and her loop. In the process, they meet a wide variety of new peculiars, discover other types of loops, and broaden their horizons.
This book is a great sequel to the previous book as it continues exploring the world of the peculiar. There were a lot of things that were revealed over the course of this book that were intriguing. In the first book it was presented as if only humans could be peculiar, though it never directly states otherwise, but in this book when the children first find Miss Wren’s loop they discover peculiar animals as they meet a talking dog and their first emuraffe. They also meet chickens that lay exploding eggs and sheep that have bulletproof wool. This also introduces the idea of other types of loops as well. Miss Wren’s loop is a menagerie loop meaning it is a sanctuary for peculiar animals instead of peculiar children which was rather interesting. It also discusses other types of loops, such as the punishment loops where peculiars who are criminals convicted by the ymbryne council are sentenced. Those loops seem to be mostly disastrous or horrible days to truly make the sentence a punishment. Reading about these different kinds of loops made me notice something though. In the first book it is rather explicitly stated that loops can only be created and maintained by a ymbryne, a woman who can turn into a bird and can control loops and time. When the children first travel to Miss Wren’s loop she is not there and has not been there for a few days which suggests that her loop should be unstable and on the verge of collapse but it is not. There is also no mention of ymbrynes needing to help maintain the punishment loops either so it makes me curious how these two ideas can co-exist. It makes me wonder what kind of explanation may still be forthcoming about this because I really want to know. Overall, I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This is a great book and one that I would definitely recommend to other readers. In my opinion it would be appealing to both older teens and young adults as well as adults, especially those who enjoy books that are fantasy or just plain weird. I don’t necessarily think it would be suitable for younger teens or children though as it does contain violence and other somewhat dark themes. That in no way detracts from the quality of the book though as this world of the peculiar is meant to be bizarre, weird and at times creepy and dark despite the seeming fantastical elements present. If you wish, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments as I look forward to seeing what you noticed about the book.