I am back with another review, today I am reviewing the final book in the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children trilogy, Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs.
The story picks up around where book two left off. Emma and Jacob embark on an adventure to save their friends. I don't really want to talk too much about the synopsis because this is book three and I feel like if you've made it this far, you've either read the book already or you've read up to this point in the series and know what's going on.
I think I just want to talk about the series more as a whole, explain my thoughts and feelings overall.
My number one problem with this book/series was the romance between Jacob and Emma. I don't know for what exact reason I wasn't a fan, but I'll give a couple. Firstly, I never really got Emma's age. I mean, yes, she is stuck in her time loop's age, but even in the first book, I always felt like she was a little kid, like 10-11, 12 max. And that just kinda felt weird with Jacob being 16. Know, I know she's supposed to be older and technically, she's hundreds of years older than him, but I always pictured her as a child, so any romantic interactions with Jacob weirded me out. Secondly, I wasn't really a fan of the idea that she was like the love of Jacob's grandfather's life and then moved on to Jacob. There's dating your friends ex, but dating your grandpa's ex - it just felt weird to read. I don't know how that would be for her, dating one guy, and then decades later, meeting his grandson and having feelings for him. I think part of my problem with this aspect is I was never sure if she liked Jacob for who he was, or because he reminded him of Abe. Finally, I just felt like this book had so much going on, a romance was unnecessary and just too much sometimes. There were so many adventures and secrets and stories that the romance just felt a little random.
The story itself, I enjoyed. I thought this was a good book to conclude the stories - and it also set up the desire for a real book of the Tales of the Peculiar. There was a lot more references to it in this book, and now I want to go out and pick up a copy. I liked how everything ended, it was well wrapped up with what happens next for Jacob's life.
I think I genuinely did like this trilogy, but it is so unlike anything I've read before, it took me a while to recognize that I liked it as much as I did.
This book does take a bit to get into, and I believe it is a bit longer than the other two - you could definitely tell in the first half that there were more pages as it dragged a little bit. Part of the problem with might be because the chapters were a good 50 pages each, so if you wanted to "finish off the chapter" you were in it for a while.
The pictures, as always, were an interesting addition to the plot. I did find myself wondering a couple times if they were written into the story, or if the story was written so well that they just happened to fit in. Some seemed a little strange to add - they were a bit of a filler with a very quick, minor sub-story that didn't add a lot to the overall story but were still included. Sometimes the story felt stretched to fit the photos, which for me, felt like it defeated the purpose. In the other books, the photos felt hand-chosen for the story. However, many of the photos in this book seemed as though they were found, deemed interesting and (often poorly) worked in.
Looking at this review, I feel like I'm giving an impression that I didn't like this book/series. And that's not true - I really did. However, I think I'm picking up more of the more negative aspects to talk about. I did enjoy this series and I think it is a unique story.
Overall, an interesting series if you are looking for something a little different.