The story so far… 

Contains spoilers

After the death of his grandfather, sixteen year old Jacob visits a remote Welsh island where his grandfather lived as a boy. There, he discovers the orphanage is just as his grandfather had left it, right down to the peculiar children who lived there. 

Peculiar children are ones with skills, abilities or physical quirks that set them outside the normal world.  They can make fire with their hands, float in the air, have bees living inside them or, in Jacob’s case, can see Hollows – creatures whose only mission in life is to find and kill peculiars (of which he has discovered he’s one). 

To avoid detection, peculiar children live in loops, days frozen in time, which they relive again and again, never aging unless  they leave the loop – in which case they die within days. The orphanage was in a loop when Jacob finds it. I say was because not long after he arrives, Hollows attack and kidnap the head of the orphanage  – Miss Peregrine.  It is one of many attacks throughout peculiar dorm and, before long, Jacob and the other children are on the run and racing against time to find Miss Peregrine and a loop that can stop them dying. 

What happens next

From goodreads

They’ll travel from modern-day London to the labyrinthine alleys of Devil’s Acre, the most wretched slum in all of Victorian England. It’s a place where the fate of peculiar children everywhere will be decided once and for all. Like its predecessors, Library of Souls blends thrilling fantasy with never-before-published vintage photography to create a one-of-a-kind reading experience. An army of deadly monsters. An epic battle for the future of peculiardom.

What do I think…

So I’ve been a big fan of this series, as my other reviews show, and that hasn’t changed with this book. It’s well written, has great vintage photos that add to the story, an interesting plot and well drawn characters. Key are Jacob and Emma, who find themselves in the heart of the dark world of the Hollows and all that threatens the peculiar way of life, leading to their forming some very unlikely alliances in order to save their friends.

Perhaps inevitably it all goes wrong and they find themselves in greater peril and travelling further into the loops that should in theory keep them safe but instead lead them into danger. forced to find the library of souls, where the most powerful shoulds in peculiar dorm are kept, Jacob has to use his wits to keep everyone he loves safe. If I honest, said wits seemed in short supply in the book but then again he is only 16 and under a fair bit of pressure to avoid everyone being killed. Still, he makes some pretty bad decisions. 

However this does make for a pretty fast-paced readers there is always something happening. The last in the trilogy, it felt like I was hurtling towards the end, towards a grand finale. And, of course, I was. And, because this is a young adult book, everything was also being tied up, all the loose ends were resolved and I got a pretty happy ending. It as one that seemed fitting and left me feeling satisfied, with the book and the series, both of which I liked a lot and would recommend.

Emma