Book Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Synopsis (from Goodreads):  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 bought this book a week after it came out in stores.  I was so excited to read it but then I got a pile of ARCs to read, had to move out of my house so all my books got packed up and then stopped blogging for a couple months.  After we moved back into our house, I unpacked my books and found this one!  So, I finally had the chance to read it.

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this book.  I made sure I didn't read a lot of reviews and the ones I did read were glowing reviews.  This book started out a little slow for me and while it got better and held my interest more, it was never one of those books that I just couldn't put down.  I did LOVE the pictures in it.  They were creepy and added a special element to the story.

Jacob has heard stories of his grandfather's younger years all his life.  They are crazy stories about girls who can levitate and invisible boys and scary monsters.  Jacob grows up and realizes that his grandfather was sent to a home for children during World War II because he was escaping the Nazis.  Jacob decides his grandfather has made up all these crazy stories, despite the photographs that he has been shown.  

Now Jacob is in high school and his grandfather is getting older and suffering from what the family thinks is dementia.  When Jacob gets a rather disturbing call from his grandfather, he decides to go and check up on him.  Once he gets to his grandfather's house, what he finds will shatter his world.  

Jacob decides to take a trip to the island where his grandfather stayed and visit Miss Peregrine, the house mother.  After talking his father into taking him, he finds that Miss Peregrine's home is no longer in good condition and hasn't had anybody living in it for many years.  Things get a little strange after he follows a young girl into the bog and from there, Jacob needs to decide if he is going to go back to his ordinary, boring life or if he is going to take on this new adventure.

This book was really interesting to me because it was different from anything I've read.  We have time travel, strange and scary monsters, time travel and of course, the peculiar children.  However, getting Jacob to the island to discover all these things took almost half the book.  The first part was not nearly as good as the second part and I really think it could have been shortened and still be a really great book!

I loved Jacob and all the peculiar children.  Enoch was a little creepy for me but he did redeem himself in the end and I enjoyed reading about all the rest.  I would have liked a little more background on each child (you got a very brief background on a couple of them at the end but not much).  I liked Emma and Jacob's relationship despite Emma's past relationship info.  I just liked Emma in general.  She was determined and not afraid of anything.  

This book had some really great creepy moments and I loved the characters and the different elements in this story.  I think that it could have been a little shorter and it would have been great!  I'm so glad I finally got to read it and now I can jump into the sequel without having to wait!