Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.
This book is: creative and haunting.
Other elements: peculiarity, mental health, family dynamics, sheep murderers, reality vs fantasy.
Read it: if you like the idea of fantasy and the real world colliding.
Overall rating: 6.5/10
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children revolves around a teenage boy named
Jacob, who opens the novel by acting like an entitled brat in a drug store that
his family owns. After Jacob’s his grandfather, a frequent teller of fanciful
stories, dies in a suspicious way, Jacob starts to wonder if his grandfather's
fairy tales might have actually be more truth than fiction. This lands him
swiftly in psychiatric care, but he doesn’t stop his subtle investigation into
his grandfather’s life. He can’t stop thinking about a collection of photos his
grandfather used to show him when he was young: very old photos of children
that appear to have supernatural abilities. They’re the kind of photo that used
to accompany old time advertisements for sideshow freaks, that kind of thing. Jacob
always thought the photos were fake, but the more he investigates, the
more he suspects there's something real behind all of it. He begins to discover
that not only is he right, but that he's actually a part of it all.
I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when
extraordinary things began to happen. The first of these came as a terrible
shock and, like anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves:
before and after. - Page 8
I still think this book has one of the best titles and covers I've ever seen. And the cover photograph (as well as the book itself) has a great story behind it. The author, Ransom
Riggs, collected old photographs - photographs like the ones Jacob’s
grandfather had, of people demonstrating unusual talents: floating girls,
invisible boys; the sort of curiosity photos often made with costumes and
double exposure. Riggs says in the Author's Note that he’d originally planned
to write a picture book, but that this story had evolved around the photos
instead. I’m glad it did – I love that there’s a kernel of fact at the heart at
this story, and I like thinking of the people in the photos and what they would
think of the fact they their photos are inspiring creative work in future
generations.
My main complaint I never really managed to like the main character. He
wasn't horrible, but he lacked insight and was generally non-fascinating. I was
also unimpressed at the ease with which he decided to abandon his family. I
found myself wishing I could hear Jacob’s grandfather’s story instead; he
sounds like a more interesting guy. I liked the peripheral characters so much that I still enjoyed reading it, but I couldn't help but feel that the real meat of the story was happening out of sight.
This is a weird thing to say about a book that I liked, but I was unhappy
when I reached the end of this book and realized the author is planning to
do a series. I thought the strength of the novel was in the quiet,
fascinating mystery of the peculiar children and their world. I was
disappointed to realize that they were going to leave their home and venture
forth into the world to become entirely a known quantity. I think I would have
preferred if the protagonist had gone home and let the little mystery live on.
But that sort of disregards the entire plot.
Maybe I just felt so attached to
the peculiar children that I’m upset that they have to leave their sanctuary
and enter the normal world. Or maybe I’ve just read a lot of unfinished series
lately and I’m tired of waiting for an
ending.
Hopefully my instinct is wrong and the sequel will be unexpectedly great. Has
anyone out there read this and felt the same way?
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