Library of Souls, Ransom Riggs

The main problem I had with this book — the whole series, really — is that it isn’t an arc of three stories which contribute to one another but are relatively complete in themselves. The story literally continues as if there was no more than a chapter break, which after a couple of months is a bit of a barrier to getting back into it. It does make for a pretty good conclusion though, developing people’s motives and powers, bringing things to a turning point climax. The photographs were integrated the least into the story of all the books — some of them felt like they were there purely as set dressing, which is always a problem for me in worldbuilding. I want more from it.

Still, that sounds like damning with faint praise and for the most part, I definitely enjoyed this, and I enjoyed the fact that Emma and Jacob’s strange situation is explored: the fact that in many ways, she’s much older than him, though she doesn’t look it. The fact that he is caught between two worlds.

The first ending (in my head), where Jacob went back with his parents and had to go to therapy, etc, felt… realistic. He says he’s had crazy adventures, he went missing, and now his parents are glad to have him back but not quite trusting, not quite sure. The ending-after-that seemed like a bit of a cop-out, though; it just made things too easy, with no sting of parting, no difficult period of adjustment, but something like the best of both worlds.

Rating: 3/5