Hollow City - Ransom Rggs

Just in from the library!! Currently reading. Review to be posted

The cover of the 2nd book. You meet this peculiar girl in Part Two.

Update 11/17 almost done! Sorry its taking so long, life is hectic right now

Not much more to go now

Well its almost 5am here and I am finally done the book. I will say the first few chapters drug along with the childish bickering, but the story gained momentum fast and did not stop until the very last page. In this book the children are set out to find a way to cure Miss Peregrine who is stuck in bird form. We come to find out almost all of the Ymbryne's have been captured by the Wight's. The children find their way into an old Loop where peculiar animals live. Their ymbryne Miss Wren has fled to London in hopes to help her sister ymbryne's who were under attack.

From there the children, who need a ymbryne to help Miss P, make a long journey to London and hit lots of hiccups along the way. When they leave the loop they come across a group of gypsies and manage to hide on the back of a wagon for several hours before they are discovered. At first the gypsies shove the children in a cage and threaten to harm them however suddenly one of the men steps forward and chooses to hide the children when the wight army comes looking for them. You soon find out the gypsy man has a peculiar son who is rapidly turning invisible. With a new found understanding the gypsies agree to help the children get to the train station. They make it but are soon taken by the wights and are forced to fight their way free.

Once free they manage to catch back up to their train where they indeed finally make it to London. London is under attack because it is still 1940 where they are and World War II is still happening. They follow clues hidden in the Peculiar Stories that lead them to St Paul's Cathedral. Here they go searching for pigeons as mentioned in the story they are peculiar and help lead the children to Miss Wren. They find the hidden loop in the crypt of the church and find themselves at a side show event where they go searching for other peculiar people. They find a boy who tells them the name of an intersection which the children follow and low and behold finally find Miss Wren. They give Miss Wren the peregrine who is their ymbryne in hopes to heal her. Now at this point the bird who is Miss P has become aggressive and been acting more bird like. The children fear this is her losing her humanity and becoming more animal.

While staying inside the building, which is covered in ice thanks to a peculiar girl, the children learn that peculiar's are teaming up in hopes to fight back against the wights and save their ymbrynes. The group is torn down the middle and some decide to stay back where it is safe and others choose to let Miss Peregrine decide what they should do. Emma tries to convince Jacob to go home at this point which he actually agrees to do!! I was appalled at this because he is just starting to truly understand his ability to feel the hollows.

**Spoiler Alert**

It's show time. Miss Wren is about to break the spell keeping Miss P a bird when suddenly it is not Miss Peregrine, but her brother who is peculiar and can also turn into a bird. You learn that the wights from the first book tricked the children into taking Caul, and letting them think it is Miss Peregrine. The whole time Caul sat listening to the children and learning of all of their weaknesses and abilities. Caul has the building surrounded and ends up taking everyone captive by killing the peculiar girl who makes the ice. The large group is brought to present day London when they exit the loop and are being stuffed on a train when a fight breaks out. The bendable man slips out of his cuffs and makes a run for it. The wights shoot him of course causing chaos in the subway. Emma uses this as an opportunity to fire up her cuffs and melt them off of her. She and Jacob fight several Wights before being knocked out by the blind brothers screaming. Jacob is semiconscious when he sees the Wights shoving the last of the group onto the train and Addison dragging him to safety. When Jacob comes to he learns Addison's loop had been invaded by wights and he fought his way out of it. Jacob takes a call from his father where he tells him he is alive, he loves him, and he hopes to return one day. A hollow shows up, which only Jacob can see, and some how Jacob realizes he has another peculiar ability, he can talk to and control hollows.

The book ends there which still leaves us with questions of course. I am looking forward to the third book mostly because of Jacob's life like premonition dreams. At first I was convinced they were what was going on in the real world in current time but then at the end I was convinced I was wrong. Jacob dreamed he was being burried and could hear his family and friends talking about him. I thought this was due to the fact he was from the recent times but was stuck in the past. Then, at the end of the book when Jacob takes the call from his father, you find out his parents are in London looking for him. I also want to point out that his phone had 177 missed calls from Dad. Not 1 from Mom... his mom was very strange from the first book and almost seemed happy to have both men leave her house. I predict something comes of that. Now back to the dreams... Jacob has a dream from his grandfather which was obviously him saying you can control hollowgashts. I want to know if this is some ability Jacob has or if it is something his grandfather is able to do.

Well, on to the next book!

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs

I started reading this book one day at work because it was available as an e-book through my local library. I wasn't sure I would even like it, but the cover sucked me in. Yes I choose books by their covers.

I will say I was instantly trapped in this book and found myself not even noticing when people were talking to me. You start off hearing these wonderful stories from Jacob's grandfather, Abe. Now as a reader you automatically think these are fake and the main character grows to stop believing in them as well. One day Jacob's grandfather Abe is killed by wild animals near his home and Jacob is the one to find him. This leaves him terribly disturbed and has to seek counseling to try and work through the incident.

This counseling leads Jacob and his father, Franklin, to the island where Abe was living as an Orphan. From here the book seriously picks up pace and you find out that yes, all of the stories were true. Also, all of the kids in the photographs also exist and they have yet to age. Jacob becomes familiar with all of the children and Miss Peregrine as well as the dangers they face. Not long after Jacobs continued visit to the Loop, the Hollows end up finding them. Hollows are what they call the bad wights because they lost their souls during a dark magic type ordeal.

The book ends with a cliff hanger and some unanswered questions. I look forward to reading Hollowed City to see what happens next. The only thing I will comment on the book is the righting style is definitely that of a younger reader however the content is more for an older reader, if that makes any sense.

Sorry I don't have any pictures, again I read it through my Kindle. The book has such good creepy photos to go along with the story.

Witch World - Christopher Pike

Now this book took on a theme I hadn't really read before. I usually read books about the supernatural because who doesn't want to escape from reality from time to time. The main character, Jessie, and all of her friends have recently graduated high school. The main setting of the book is in Las Vegas, where the entire senior class has agreed to spend their first weekend as graduates. Jessie's ex-boyfriend, Jimmy, tags along with her group as planned by Jessie's best friend Alex, so that they can work things out.

Jimmy reveals to Jessie why he broke up with her out of the blue and stopped talking to her. Jimmy's ex-girlfriend, Kari, became pregnant and they had a baby boy named Huck. When Jessie asks why he is there and not with Kari he states Huck passed away 4 days after he was born. Jessie feels bad for Jimmy but is still mad for not including her in his reasoning for leaving and she storms off with Alex to start their night of fun.

Skipping ahead in the story some Jessie meets Russ who cryptically tells her to find him when she does not know what else to do. Jessie is later kidnapped and locked in a meat freezer until she passes away. When she wakes up she is in Witch World, a world that runs parallel to the real world. Jessie, now known as Jessica, finds out she is part witch, and she now is able to control herself in both worlds. In Witch World Jessica finds her and James (Jimmy) have a baby girl, Lara. Witch World and the Regular World share events with one another but sometimes those events don't always match up. Hence, Jimmy having Huck and James having Lara.

Lara is an extremely rare powerful baby with all 10 of the known witch genes. Now a story needs a bad guy so here is where that comes in. The bad group, the Lapras, kidnap Lara in hopes to turn her evil. Long story short it doesn't work. Jessie is tempted by evil only to have Jimmy, yes Jimmy not James, help her through it. She overcomes temptation... this time. Witch World II, Black Night, comes out December 2, 2014 and I am certainly interested to see what direction Jessie takes.

The main things that bothered me in this book was that these kids are all newly 18 and have kids themselves. It is not exactly promoting a good idea to young readers. I get it is just a story but it was weird none the less that Jessica's father was totally cool with her having a kid at 18 and even helped the Tar push her and Jimmy together. The only other thing that was a tad bit odd was that turns out all of Jessie's closest friends have the Witch Gene. It is lamely explained in the book as people who have witch genes and don't know it are often drawn together...

The story line was very good and the dialect was easy to read and believable for someone who is 18. I like that the book for the most part gives you closure on the main characters and even some of the back characters. They didn't disappear like in some books once the story gets going.

Movie weekend

So Corey and I spent the weekend watching movies on demand. I want to share my thoughts on these movies to either convince you to watch them yourself or help you avoid the suffering I withstood.

The Prestige

A movie about two dueling magicians who once worked together. 1 magician (Hugh Jackman) had his wife killed in an accident while performing some magic trick where she was tied up under water. The other magician (Christian Bale) is the one who tied the ropes so naturally Hugh Jackman spends the whole movie trying to kill Christian Bale or ruin his tricks. There is a twist ending and the whole movie you are trying to figure out how they do these tricks. Short of it all WATCH THIS MOVIE. I wasn't a believer and didn't really want to watch it but Corey talked me into it because he has seen it before and I am happy we watched it.

Lawless

This movie I thought was going to be your typical boy movie (since those are the types of movies Corey likes). But let me just say that this is probably one of my favorite movies ever. Shia LeBeouf is a whiny annoying kid the entire time but other than that it is amazing. The story is about a family of moonshiners during the prohibition trying to make their living while the 'law' is trying to stop them. The oldest brother played by Tom Hardy is a man of few words yet he is such a family man. The middle brother played by Jason Clarke is the enforcer of the family who basically kicks anyones but who hurts or upsets his family. There are two love stories in this that aren't prominent but they do play a part. Mostly the entire movie I was on the edge of my seat cheering for the bad guys. And working in law enforcement it is very odd for me to do that. This is 1 movie you should watch on a date night.

Zero Dark Thirty

After reading about my friends and co-workers seeing this and talking about how good it was a truly looked forward to watching it. If it wasn't for the fact that this is all based on real events and having all lived it we know what happens, I wouldn't have been able to follow the movie. I spent a lot of the movie asking Corey, 'What did they just say?'. I mean I know it is a movie that is pro america and all that but it was confusing. The one good thing about it was that hottie Jason Clarke (middle brother from lawless) was in it.= with Jessica Chastain (the waitress from lawless). This is a movie that made me really appreciate living in America because I couldn't imagine living the way people do in other countries. This movie is take it or leave it for me. It was free on demand and it was a date night for us so I don't mind having watched it but I don't feel I took out of it what my friends who have seen it took from it.

Sooo thats my reviews of the movies we watched this past weekend. If you feel differently about any of them that ok we are all different people and will view things differently. This is just my interpretation on the movies.