Quotes from Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Bookish Mardi : Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

"What I believe when it comes to big things in life, there are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. You are here for a reason - and it's not to fail and die."

- Ransom Riggs

Book Summary

After fleeing in a boat from the hollows the children  are caught up in a bad storm and need to find a land. They land on a beach only to find out that the wights had followed them and they flee into the forests of mainland. With nowhere to tun they discover a loop with the help of their book " The Tales of the Peculiar"  and escape into a loop full of peculiar animals.  After learning that Miss Wren, the animal's ymbryne, had flown to England to help her sister ymbrynes, they leave in search of her. 

Along the roads they become stowaways  on a passing cart, becoming friends of a traveling bands of Gypsies who help them elude the searching wights until they are all captured trying to board the train to London. They are held by the wights in a small shed until one of the children's peculiarities  rescues the group from the certain death. 

In the city they see horrible things left  by the bombing as they search for Miss Wren's peculiar pigeon. They manage to make it to Saint Paul's Cathedral where they follow her pigeons in an underground crypt where they find two peculiar children named  Joel and Peter who are  echolocators and seem to share one mind. The lead them to a loop and only Emma, Jacob, and Horace enter following the flutter of pigeons wings up to the attic where they meet Melina Manon, a peculiar gifted with Telekinesis, who distrusts them but begs to travel with them bringing the pigeon that they believe will lead them to Miss Wren. (Source: Wikipedia)

Remarkable Lines from the Book 

Inferno by Dante Alighieri'

"Just because they knew it was lost didn't mean they knew how to let go." - Jacob

". . .your talent can be developed." - Millard 

"Peculiarities are a bit like muscles - the more you exercise them, the bigger they grew." -  Millard

"Destiny if for people in books." - Jacob

"What I believe when it comes to big things in life, there are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. You're here for a reason - and it's not to fail and die." - Emma 

"If my body was cold in the night mist, I didn't feel it. If the sea roared in my ears, I didn't hear it. If the rock I sat on was sharp and jagged, I hardly noticed. Everything outside the two of us was`a distraction." - Jacob

"Peculiar creatures must roam around to be happy." - Bronwyn

"Some truths are expressed bet in the form of myth." - Addison 

"I'd become a mystery they would never solve. A wound that would never heal." - Jacob

"Everything happens for a reason." - Jacob

"It's not about destiny but I do think there's balance in the world, and sometimes forces we don't understand intervene to tip the scales the right way." - Jacob

"There's no need to cry over milk that hasn't even spilled yet." - Jacob

"There are many strangers wandering the roads these days - people who aren't what they appeasr to be." - Bekhir

"If I'd kept my heart better armored, where would I be now?" - Jacob

". . .peculiarness wasn't a deficiency, but an abundance." - Jacob

"At the heart of nature's mystery lies another mystery." - Perplexus Anomalous 

"Every peculiar had struggled through a period of painful uncertainty. Every peculiar had been tried." - Jacob

"There was less glory in running away from a fight." - Jacob

"There are many answers to be found within, if you only know what to look for." -  Bronwyn

"The past can't be changed." - Millard

"I envied the blind brothers, navigating a mercifully detail-free topography; the world in wireframe. I wondered briefly, what their dreams looked like - or if they dreamt at all." - Jacob

"Their deaths had been written into histoy. Even if we'd saved their lives today, something else would've taken  them tomorrow. Another bomb. A car crash. They were of the past, and the past always mends itself, no matter how we interfere." - Millard

"History heals itself." - Enoch

"Laughing doesn't make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better. It doesn't mean you don't care, or that you've forgotten. It just means you're human." - Jacob

"You may choose to live in a world of fantasy if you like." - Enoch

"From the mouths of our elderly comes a fountain of wisdom." - Millard

". . . is my best reason  for staying in peculiardom didn't want me anymore, I wouldn't debase myself by clinging to her. I had my pride." - Jacob


"I was not nearly as ordinary as I used to be - or if it was true that I'd never been ordinary, now I knew it. I had changed. And that, at least, gave me some hope: That even under ordinary circumstances, I still fins a way to live an extraordinary life." - Jacob 

"Peculiarness is determined by genes, not geography." - Millard

". . . let the world keep a litt;e of its magic, rather than forcing it to divulge every last secret."  - Jacob

"Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder." - Jacob

Emma: Asking you to leave was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I'm glad you came around. I don't think I'd have had the strength to ask again.
Jacob: I wish there were a world where we could be together in peace.

"Don't fight the pain, that's the key. It's telling you something. Welcome it, let it speak to you." - Abe Portman

Snippets of the the Photographs from the Book 

. . . human behaving like an animal

. . .dog acting like a human

. . .a girl who can heal herself

. . .eyes of the twin echolocators

. . . painting against the wall

Thanks for sparing your time in my blog! ^_^

- Cee Brensan

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Bookish Mardi: A Book Review of  Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

"When someone stops knocking, eventually you stop knocking." 
- Ransom Riggs

If you have been following my Bookish Mardi posts, in my last book review , I made mention of a friend who introduced Gayle Forman to me. It is also the same college friend who had introduced me to Mr. Ransom Riggs. It was her status "When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking."  via FB that made me include the book in my RL (Reading List) and by fate's hand, I was able to own this series. So as not to bore you with my so many blah blah blah's, here goes another book meandering. ^_^

Book Review

To start with, the moment I had this series, I really thought it would be a kind of horror, WHICH I was a  bit excited to read  since it's the very first horror genre in my shelf. I noticed the book's grayish cover which heightened what I was thinking. PLUS, (well to be honest, because of too much excitement) I flipped the book to go over the photographs in it. 

It was just on the latter part that I found out it was never a horror story at all but a twist of X-Men kind of a story. It was precisely about supernatural powers. It was after reading the first pages when I realized that the girl on the cover page was actually levitating. Hence nothing made the cover creepy at all. Tsk3x! I was, to admit, quiet expecting to much about the book after reading its very first paragraph. However, as I made progress with the book, I was disappointed of not meeting my mind's expectation. 

Although the book had opened its door for me to another genre, I couldn't say I have loved the book and its story the way I used to be to my usual favorite.  In one way or another, it had been dragging me at some point. However, it's still worth reading. The author's idea of merging old and unusual photographs into the story played a very signigicant role, quirky enough, it made me want to  unravel more of the story.

This book also enabled me to revisit one of my childhood fantasies - having what they called "super powers". When I was a child, I always wanted to know how and what others were thinking from minute insects, trainable animals to the unfathomable humans. Though it is not much of great power, it always amused me and even until today to be able to read somebody's thinking and to be able to know somebody's way of thinking and what urged them to think such way. This thought never flew away when I was reading the book. It was such great idea for Mr. Riggs to made me relive my chilhood just by reading his masterpieces.

To tell you, would it be funny to admit I was also thinking of being one among Jacob's other world's friends IF I had been blessed with my ability to read mind??? It would surely be nice reading my own name in this book. HAHAHAHAH! Silly me. ^_^

Moreover, time travelling, being evident in the story, gave much impact of the book. Staying physically young despite of the characters' ages also carried a significant aspect of the story. These two are actually the things I found fascinating about the book. And to wrap it up, it's still worth reading! :))


Book Summary

Jacob Portman grew up listening to his grandfather's stories about his life at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and looking at photographs of children who were peculiar indeed. A levitating girl, an invisible boy . . . all found a safe haven in Miss Peregrine's watch from the terrible monsters who sought them.

But when Jacob gets older, he realizes that the story can't possibly be true, and all of those photographs must have been faked. Meanwhile his grandfather gets more paranoid every day that the monsters that the monsters will find him. 

When something terrible happens, Jacob journeys to the tiny island that was his grandfather's home to prove to himself once and for all that the stories aren't true. But the truth is far more peculiar that he ever imagined. 



Remarkable Lines from the Book

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children 

"Who seem to die live." - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"I had just come to accept woule be ordinary when extraordinary things began  to happen." - Jacob Portman

". . . so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had alreadt been discovered." - Jacob

"I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated." - Jacob

Photo from Web

"We built pyramids of things that could be saved or salvaged and oyramid of things for the Dumpster." - Jacob

". . . it's easy to say you don't care about money when you have plenty of it." - Jacob

". . .walking is for poor people." - Jacob

"People get too old to care for a place, their family writes them off for one reason or another - it's sad, but it happens." - Jacob

". . . the easiest kind of lying is when you leave things out of a story rather than make them up." -  Jacob

"When someone wont let you in, eventually you stop knocking." - Worm/Dylan

"Sometimes you just need to go through a door." - Jacob

"Old people die." - Jacob

"I guess I don't believe things are ever that simple." - Franklin Portman

"Why would you diguise your identity in a letter?  Because you have something to hide. Because you are the other woman." - Jacob

"That house is such an emotionally loaded place for you, just being inside was enough to trigger a stress reaction." - Dr. Golan

"I undertstood only two things: that I was quite possibly in the midst of losing my mind, and that I needed to get away from people until I could figure out whether or not I actually was." - Jacob

"Polite persons do not eavesdrop on the conversation of others!" - Miss Peregrine

"The composition of the human species is infinitely more diverse than most human aspects." - Miss Peregrine

"The real taxonomy of Homo Sapiens is a secret known to only a few, of whom you will now be one." - Miss Peregrine

"Peculiar children are not always, or even usually, born to peculiar parents, and peculiar parents do not always, or even usually, bear peculiar children." - Miss Peregrine

"We peculiars are blessed with skills that common people lack, as infinite in combination and variety as others are in the pigmentation of their own skin or the appearance of their facial features." - Miss Peregrine

"Males lack seriousness of temperament required of persons withsuch responsibilities." - Miss Peregrine

"The future isn't so grand after all. Nothing wrong with the good old here and now!" - Miss Peregrine

"The changeover is ever so beautiful." - Claire

"You're right, Dad. Dr. Golan did help me. But that doesn't mean he has to control every aspect of my life." - Jacob

"I'm no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch your nose four times, I'm pretty sure that's flirting." - Jacob

"When would sickness and death be overcome by science?" - Jacob

"See you tomorrow, future boy!" - Emma

"It may appear to you thwt we've found a way to cheat death, but it's an illusion." - Miss Peregrine

"I've live long enough to see some truly dreadful things." - Miss Peregrine

"Yes (loop) it was beautiful and life was good, but if every day were exactly alike and if the kids really couldn't leave, . . .then this place wasn't just heaven but a kind of prison, too." - Jacob

"It was just so hynotizingly pleasant that it might take a person years to notice, and by then it would be too late; leaving would be too dangerous." - Jacob

". . .if people here insisted on keeping things secret, well, I'd just have to find stuff out for myself." - Jacob

"Something I was beginning to discover about lying: The more I did it, the easier it got.' - Jacob

". . . we're never safe - none of us - not really."  - Emma

". . .which is why we call them hollowgast - because their hearts, their souls, are empty." -Miss Peregrine

"Will I ever be safe anywhere?" - Jacob

"Someone's got to be a hero." - Millard

". . .what an unchallenging life it would be if we always for things right on the first go." - Dr. Golan

"If you must fail, fail spectacularly!" - Dr. Golan

"Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many were born but their light not yet come this far? If all suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us  to realize that we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries - but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was." - Jacob

"Sometimes it's better not to look back." - Jacob

Photo from Web

Few of the Photographs from the Books 

Title Page 

Olive Abroholos Elephanta The Levitating Girl

A man with a mouth at the back of the head

Flexibility

The Reflection

Emma Bloom Fire Girl

. . .from Abe Portman

. . .from Emma Bloom

.Hollowgast

Wight

Keep updated for the quotes from the book's sequel. ^_^

- Cee Brensan