Review: LIBRARY OF SOULS by Ransom Riggs

Release Date: September 22, 2015

Publisher: Quirk 

Page Count: 458

Rating: 5/5 Stars

The adventure that began with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and continued in Hollow City comes to a thrilling conclusion with Library of Souls. As the story opens, sixteen-year-old Jacob discovers a powerful new ability, and soon he’s diving through history to rescue his peculiar companions from a heavily guarded fortress. Accompanying Jacob on his journey are Emma Bloom, a girl with fire at her fingertips, and Addison MacHenry, a dog with a nose for sniffing out lost children.

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.

LIBRARY OF SOULS was the absolute perfect conclusion to the Miss Peregrine series. 

I decided to audiobook this book, as I've done with the entire Miss P series, because for some gosh darn reason I just can't get through these books any other way. I really don't know why! I LOVE them, but I've never been able to read it all the way through in the print version. Maybe it's because the narrator for the audiobooks is just amazing. Anyways, that's besides the point. 

I had very high expectations going in to this book. I loved Miss P, absolutely adored HOLLOW CITY, and I knew LIBRARY OF SOULS just had to end this series with a bang- and it absolutely did that. 

It's so hard to talk about this book without spoiling anything, because so much of the wonderfulness surrounding this book comes from the twists and turns of the plot itself. Really, the plot is spectacular. I remember reading in an interview that Ransom takes forever to write his books, but when reading them, it totally makes sense. These aren't the stories that come overnight, or even in a month. The story is too intricate, too beautiful to not take a long time to write. Everything from the word choice to the dialogue to the way the chapters are broken up, and how that all intermingles with the gorgeous photography...its stunning. It really is stunning. This series is truly an art form and, furthermore, an entirely new medium all on its own. It's not often that pictures and text are so perfectly blended together as they are within this series, and the connection only gets smoother as the books go on. In LOS, the connection was just superb. 

There really isn't a bad thing in the world that I could say about this book. Jacob, Emma, and the gang were just as adorable as always, and, as always, I want to squish them all (seriously, they are too cute!). The new characters were just as lovable (or...err...lacked lovable qualities, when needed).  Everything about them drew me in and kept me engaged throughout the whole story. The dialogue was witty, and complimented each character perfectly, just as it had the past three books. 

It's very, very hard to wrap up a trilogy. Many authors struggle with it. But to those who are trying to accomplish the feat: take note from LIBRARY OF SOULS. Every loose strand was tied up into a beautiful blanket of a story that covered everything I could possibly want in a book: love, action, adventure, humor, and, most of all: a story that'll stick in my heart forever. The MISS PEREGRINES HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN series will forever remain a favorite of mine- a favorite that stayed a favorite from the title page of the first novel, to the end page of the last novel. It is a story that sticks to the strings of your heart and doesn't let them go...ever.