Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Series: book #1

Published June 7, 2011 by Quirk

Genre: YA fantasy/Historical

$9.99 (US Paperback)

348 pages

What it's about:

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs.

It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

My thoughts:
I have been wanting to read this book since it first came out, but for some reason I wouldn't let myself buy it new, and I could never get a copy at the library (always checked out) so it took me a long time to read it. I finally found a copy (used) and scarfed down the book in a matter of days.

This book read sort of like a fairy tale. The stories you hear as children coming to life in a big way. I kinda dig those stories, and will always gravitate towards them, so this was my kind of book.

I've read a lot of reviews for this book, where the reader stated that the first part of the book was really good, and then just fizzled and died for them. I didn't find this the case at all. I will agree that the first half of the book is by far the better half, but I really enjoyed the second half as well, and the ending left me wanting the next book.

The characters were all pretty entertaining, but Jacob took me a while to get to like. He was down in the dumps for the first part of the book, which is always really painful to read (at least, to me it is). Depressed characters are hard to like, but this changed. And I loved learning all about the Peculiar children and how their life works.

And the pictures! Oh how those pictures are marvelous! The whole idea of finding old pictures and creating a story to make them come to life is fantastic. I thought Riggs did a pretty great job coming up with an interesting story to explain all the pictures. There were times when Riggs would describe something and I wished it had a picture to go along with it, but it wouldn't. That was disappointing, but oh well.

My rating: 4/5 stars