Hollow City

If you're searching for what to read before or after Hollow City by Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is the essential starting point. This is where Jacob Portman first discovers the peculiar children hidden in a time loop on a Welsh island, and where Riggs establishes the vintage-photograph aesthetic and creepy-wonder tone that makes the series so distinctive. Reading Hollow City without this book means missing the world-building that gives the sequel its emotional weight — the stakes of Miss Peregrine's capture, the children's backstories, and the lore of hollowgasts and wights. Readers who loved Hollow City's blend of adventure, supernatural danger, and found-family warmth will find this first installment even more satisfying as the origin of it all.