This article is about the book written by Ransom Riggs. For other meanings, see Library of Souls (disambiguation).
Library of Souls, the sequel to Hollow City, is the third installment in the Peculiar Children series by Ransom Riggs.
Synopsis[]
A boy with extraordinary powers. An army of deadly monsters. An epic battle for the future of peculiardom.
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.
Epigraph[]
| “ | The ends of the earth, the depths of the sea, the darkness of time, you have chosen all three. |
” |
–E. M. Forster | ||
Plot[]
Devil's Acre[]
Picking up where Hollow City left off, the novel begins with Jacob, Emma, and Addison facing a hollowgast who had followed them from the Peculiar Archives. The wights, under the command of the evil Caul, have kidnapped the rest of the peculiar children and many ymbrynes, the mother-like protectors, guardians, and guides of the peculiar world. Among them is Miss Peregrine. Jacob, Emma, and Addison aspire to get them back. They cross into present-day London to chase Caul’s forces. Under the London docks, they meet Sharon, a boatman who agrees to take them into Peculiar London.
In Peculiar London is an area best by criminals of the worst kind, called Devil’s Acre. There, Jacob, Emma, and Addison try to figure out how to break into Caul’s fortress. Addison attempts to sneak in but is captured. Jacob and Emma then meet Myron Bentham, an intelligent explorer and inventor who knew Jacob’s grandfather. Bentham reveals many startling things to Jacob and Emma. Among these are that he, Caul, and Miss Peregrine are siblings. Bentham also explains it was his fault that hollowgasts and wights exist at all.
Seeking power by feeding on the souls of peculiar children, Caul sought to find the legendary Library of Souls, where the souls of peculiars are kept and stored after death. They give the consumer immense power. Caul’s goal has always been to find the library and use it to take over the world. Bentham then sought to kill Caul and all his followers by closing the time loop they travel through but only partially succeeded. In their place come hollowgasts, essentially corpse-like versions of their former selves with no souls. When a hollowgast has consumed enough peculiar souls, they are mostly restored to their former human state and become a wight.
However, only a librarian can actually see the soul jars in the Library of Souls. Jacob’s grandfather was one such man. Bentham explains he and Jacob’s grandfather were experimenting with fracturing his grandfather’s soul to see if that particular power could be given to others rather than just being born with it. As a result, Jacob’s grandfather lost much of his peculiar power and left the peculiar world. Jacob possesses the same librarian peculiarity, which is why Caul is seeking to capture him. Emma does not trust Bentham, thinking he took Jacob’s grandfather’s powers rather than his grandfather surrendering them voluntarily.
Rescue of the peculiars and battle in the Library[]
Nevertheless, Jacob and Emma rely on Bentham to use his home –a central point for loops –to get them inside Caul’s fortress in Devil’s Acre. Once there, Caul springs a trap on Jacob and Emma to capture them with Bentham’s help. Jacob, Emma, Miss Peregrine, Caul, Bentham, and a handful of wights then venture through a loop to the Library of Souls in Abaton. They come across a throne room with a fountain and pool for the consumption of souls. Caul begins the process by transforming himself into a hideous, gigantic beast. Bentham, who is power-hungry but not evil, sacrifices himself by giving Miss Peregrine the spell to shut down the loop as Bentham did once before. He then transforms himself into a hideous monster by consuming souls and attacks Caul. Miss Peregrine and her fellow ymbrynes successfully shut down the loop, ending Caul’s reign of terror.
Returning to the normal world[]
Afterward, Jacob decides to go home to his family and tells them a bogus story about his getting amnesia and getting lost. They believe him, and aside from his continued seeing of a therapist, he's, for the most part, treated normally. He keeps up a correspondence with Emma and writes her back unlike his grandfather. She, in turn, keeps him informed about the children's whereabouts and doings. But one day, his parents find Emma's letters, and take them to the therapist, thinking he wrote them himself. The therapist recommends Jacob be taken to an "in-patient clinic" for "monitoring and rehabilitation," and despite Jacob's efforts to get out of it, all seems lost.
But on the day they are about to leave, Miss Peregrine and her children show up, shocking Jacob's parents and confusing Jacob, who thinks they're about to age forward. But Emma explains that Caul's loop collapsing reset everyone's internal clocks, so they will no longer be in danger of aging forward, and so can come live with Jacob. As the children get settled and work on Jacob's parents, Jacob suggests to Emma that maybe he could teach her how to be normal, and Emma accepts, saying why not because they had time.
The novel ends with Jake saying what he thinks are the best words in the English language: "We Have Time."
Photographs[]
Main article: Library of Souls Photographs