Jake is an ordinary high school kid with a part-time retail job until he witnesses his grandfather Abraham die. Jake is convinced the perpetrator was a monster but this claim gets him marked as insane. Abraham had spoken of a Home for Peculiar Children that he had stayed at when he was younger, showing Jake some photos (which within the book are actual vintage photography) and leaving a cryptic message behind when he dies. This prompts Jake to travel to Wales to find the titular house.
He finds his way to September 3, 1940, the time loop that the children and their caretaker Miss Peregrine live in. They've lived through the same day for several decades, and the day resets when bombs are dropped on the town. Then there's the fact that these "peculiar" children have abilities such as levitation, invisibility, pyrokinesis, and um, bees coming out of one's mouth. These elements bear a lot of exposition, and I felt like the plot took a while to get going. For much of the book, Jake is hanging out with his new friends and getting to know their world. He struggles with his attraction to Emma, who his grandfather loved while he was there, and Jake isn't sure if he wants to remain in the time loop or return to live with his parents in the 21st century.
It takes about three quarters of the novel for the strange circumstances of Abraham's death to become significant to the story again, and for a major conflict and antagonist to rear its ugly head. The climax is the rollicking adventure that I'd been hoping for the whole time, and then it ends on a sequel teasing cliffhanger. Since at times it's a dialogue-heavy book and relies on the photographs to give visual credence to the story, it may actually work better as a film than as a novel. But then if the movie doesn't make enough at the box office for Hollow City to be adapted, it will become unsatisfying.
For more about this book and the author, check out ransomriggs.com.
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