Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Hollow City and Library of Souls

This series of books started out really well. I read the first book in a couple of days. It was not the best book I ever read, but it was entertaining and the whole setting was promising. But from there it went downhill.

The story is about children with special powers, a bit like the X-Men. What makes especially the first book interesting are the old photos, which the author used to tell his story. The pictures are all real. The author found them at flee markets. The hero of the story, Jacob, discovers this strange world of these peculiar children with their powers and of course also discovers that he has some power himself. Nothing new, but in the first book it was all nice and well. It differs from other books with a similar story that it is not action-packed and the main story is set in the past.

The second book was okay. There were more peculiar children, but most of them only played a minor part in the story. What was interesting was to learn a bit more about the world the author created. But for my taste it was a bit dragging. And somehow the problems were solved too easily. It took me far longer to read the second book, but it was okay.

But the third book was downright boring and uninteresting. It took me ages to read and I just was not hooked. Somehow it did not bother me, what would become of the characters. Jacob was annoying with the development of his super-powers. And the worst was the end. Why was he not forced to make a decision? As with the second book, whenever there was a problem, there would come a rescue from nowhere. The characters did not really have to fight.

I read these books because of the upcoming movie and because of the good reviews I had really high hopes. Of course these are YA-novels, but that does not excuse the lack of character development. I was not attached to most characters and worse the third book left me cold. Not even the main villain was interesting. To be honest I can not recommend these books. And after I saw the trailer for the movie I fear even worse for this (despite director Tim Burton).