Library of Souls by Ramsom Riggs

I finished the third book in the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series and now I'm a little sad that I don't have any more to read. Obviously, this review is going to contain spoilers for the second (and by extension, the first) book so don't read further if you don't want spoilers!

The second book ended with Jacob realising that not only can he see the Hollowgasts, he can control them by speaking their language. The problem is that he has no idea how he's doing it so it's not like he's mastered this skill. But the Wights and Hollowgasts are still after them, and with most of his friends captured, Jacob and Emma (plus the Peculiar dog Addison) must find a way to save them.

I mentioned in the previous review that I was looking forward to seeing more of the Peculiar Children and I'm a little disappointed that this didn't happen. They were basically kidnapped for most of the book so it's just Jacob, Emma and Addison. I really liked Addison though - he was a fairly small character in Book 2 but he's so adorable and endearing that I'm glad he got a bigger role here!

There were a few new characters too. I particularly liked Sharon, the boatman whose name reminds me of Charon, the ferryman for Hades. Given where he ferries the trio, it seems like an apt homage. Plus he was an ambiguous character until the end and I quite enjoyed having to guess which side he was on.

Speaking of ambiguous characters - there is one more character who's motives are questionable (I still can't decide if he's good but prone to evil or just super manipulative) but if I say his name I might as well spoil the ending so have fun guessing if you haven't read Book 3!

I also mentioned that I was looking forward to how Jacob and Emma's relationship problems would be resolved in the previous review. Well, I'm kinda disappointed that they never really address/resolve the issue that Emma was in love with Jacob's grandfather for a majority of his life. Perhaps because there really isn't a way to solve this. But the ending of the book did make it so that it wasn't quite so weird for them to like each other so I will have to settle for that.

Most of the book was on developing Jacob's ability to control the Hollowgasts and building up to "HOW WILL THEY DEFEAT THE ULTIMATE EVIL" so there's definitely a satisfactory plot ending (though there are a few loose ends - perhaps more books are in the making? Or is that just wishful thinking?). If that's what you're looking for you won't be disappointed.

Oh and now I really, really want to read Tales of the Peculiar! It sounds like a really good book and the references to it made me really curious to read the actual story. I wonder if the version published is the one the kids carried or one that contains stories from after the series ended.

All in all, I'm very happy I decided to buy and finish this series. It's a great read and I loved the way the photos and the narrative intermingled. It's not perfect, but definitely worthy of 5 stars!