"We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high"
- Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Review by Kathren
Book Details:
Published June 7, 2011
Quirk Books; Book Club edition
352 Pages
Book Synopsis:
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 Miss Peregrine's children were more than just peculiar. They may be 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.
General Review:
I had been meaning to read this book since I saw it in the bookstore and didn't buy it because I'm a broke college kid. After a while I forgot about it, then one day I was watching one of my favorite you-tubers, John Green, and saw it again, apparently one of John's friends wrote it. (*!!!!* <-- that's what my brain did because I had seen it before and had wanted to read it) What originally drew me to it was the old-timey picture that was the cover. If you know anything about me you know that I love photography and a book with cool vintage pictures is a book that I will, doubtless, like, and the fact that John Green's friend wrote it was a definite plus.
Plot:
When I skimmed the synopsis, the first time, I didn't really take the time to think about what I read. I knew that I had $0.00 dollars to spend on a book that day so I didn't really want to get invested in a book to realize that I could not afford to get it. I originally thought that it was about a home for insane children, and that the main character would be discovering their horrifying history and the events that would lead to their grizzly deaths. I was wrong. The story is a sort of historical fiction meets fantasy and marries science fiction. The story is based in modern times with a grandson, Jacob, and his relationship with his late grandfather, Abraham (Abe) who was a war veteran and refugee from the time of Nazi Germany. Jacob grows up hearing,what he believes to be, fairy tales about the home that took Abe in after he escaped and the peculiar children he lived with. When tragedy strikes, Jacob is left with a mystery, what if the stories his grandfather told him were actually true? The only place he can find answers is where the fairy tales came from, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
Characters:
This part is tricky for me to explain. I enjoyed being introduced to most of the characters because there was almost always an interesting picture to go with them. However I was disappointed with many of the characters because I felt that they could have been more developed, most of the time they were introduced because there was a corresponding picture, and after the picture was shown, they were never mentioned again. While, I greatly enjoyed the characters, I was left wondering more about minute details of that character's life than I was about what was going to happen to the character in reference to the actual plot.
Final Thoughts:
I did enjoy reading this book, however I was left with a feeling of wanting more. Many times I felt that it was a story was about the pictures, rather than the pictures about the story. It was a good idea to begin with, however there were times when it was poorly executed. I was sort at odds with the whole "overlooking the lie" in order to enjoy the story because the author acknowledges that the pictures were tampered with, and yet tries to pass off the story as though the scenes depicted in the pictures were real.I got the feeling that this would become a series and greatly look forward to the next installment.
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