Hollow City Book Review

Hollow City By Ransom Riggs
Review by: Mayte VDB
4.5/5 stars

Hollow City is the second book, following "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children." It starts off right where the first book left off.
Hollow City was possibly even better than Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The First book was great, but perhaps a little bit too slow moving at times. This one had more action and many good dialogues. Part of why I think that this one was better was because the reader gets to know the characters more, and gets attached to them. This is important since the characters are pretty much the main part of the book. The spooky black and white photography scattered throughout the book worked wonderfully well with the story. It helped the reader to imagine what the many peculiar people, creatures  and places look like, together with reading the imagery. The story itself was also marvellously though out, with witty links to other parts of the book and the previous one. Overall the book is mysterious, funny, witty, dark, and it was always hard to put down.
I am very much looking forward to reading Library of Souls. This is the last book in the trilogy by Ransom Riggs. I very much recommend reading this series during the time of halloween.

Earthbound Book Review

Earthbound by Aprilynne Pike 

Review by: Mayte VDB

1/5 stars

I originally picked up this book because I read a series named Wings by this author, and absolutely loved it. This book was quite the opposite. 

Earthbound is about a girl named Tavia Michaels who is the sole survivor of a plane crash. She is grief stricken and recovering from brain damage. When all of a sudden a strange boy appears. Her life changes completely, and she finds out terrible and wondrous things. 

This book started off okay actually. The characters seemed nice and interesting. However they soon started to become annoying, selfish, and bland. There were very many parts (way too many) in this book when absolutely nothing was happening. Tavia would simply think about the same things as she thought about in the previous chapter(s). The writing style wasn't anything special. However the love triangle might have been the worst part. I didn't like either of the romances, since neither boy was interesting, and the main character kept changing her mind. A good point about this book was the creativity. The story in itself was imaginative and interesting. 

Overall this book was quite boring and took a lot of effort to get through. I read this book till the end because I thought it would get better. It didn't. I recommend reading Wings by Aprilynne Pike, if you liked this, because it's (Wings) so much better. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower book review

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky

Review by Mayte Van den Broeck

5/5 stars

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (to be referred to as "Perks" later on in review) is about a 15-16 year old boy named Charlie, who is starting high school. Charlie is extremely intelligent, shy, and is always watching, listening, and thinking. Charlie learns what it is like to be in the middle of things, instead of on the sidelines. 

I absolutely loved this book. Because it wasn't really like anything I'd read before. The writing was in letter format and the style was quite choppy. Charlie writes the same way he speaks. However, as Charlie changed, his writing seemed to change slightly as well. Which was interesting. I could relate in some ways to Charlie's high school experience, though most of it was entirely different. Perks is one of those books that makes you think, wonder, and recall your memories. One of those books that made me happy and sad, and is both dark and beautiful. The book had a very open ending, and I was left to imagine things myself. 

Overall, I had a great time reading this book. I recommend reading The Catcher in the Rye if you like this book. Not necessarily because they are similar, but because this book is mentioned in Perks several times.