Riggs, Ransom: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011)
Written by: Ransom Riggs
Genre: YA/Dark Fantasy, Horror
Pages: 352 (Hardcover)
Series: Book One
Why I Read It: I never had much interest in this book until I saw it in the store and flipped through it. The design, the interior photos, and just the overall well-made-ness of the book pushed it to my want list, and I ordered it off Amazon right away. Once it was selected for Alphabet Soup, I was hoping we'd be in for some kind of fun treat, especially since I'd been hearing good reviews since and because I hadn't seen a book like this before.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: 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.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: YAY. It's a book club selection, so there will be spoilers. If you haven't read it yet, please skip to "My Rating" and you'll be just fine. Everyone else, onward.
I went into this book with a couple of misconceptions. The first was that the book was horror. The second was that it was a stand-alone. Why I had those misconceptions is beyond me, especially in regards to the second. The first simply came from the cover and the creepy photos inside. Don't get me wrong, there definitely is a horror element to this story, but it's a story of wonder and magic too.
I enjoyed the hell out of this, I won't lie. There's something about low expectations and pretty much knowing NOTHING about the book that can lend for a biased-free reading experience, and I had a lot of fun. Immediately I was surprised that the tale took place in our modern times, with a modern narrator, but I quickly warmed up to the story between a boy and his grandfather. Given how close I was to my own grandfather, and the rose-tinted way I viewed him growing up, that should come as no surprise. The interactions between them were heart-warming and cringe-inducing because they were so realistic. When Jacob rejects his grandfather's stories as fairytales, I felt that as a blow: fairytales or not, I knew what he had with his grandfather was special, and I didn't want him to spit in the face of that. Grandfather's don't last forever, and Jacob learned that the hardest way imaginable.
For a while, once Jacob got to the island, I felt I knew what this book would be about: Jacob convincing Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children that they were dead and it was time to move on. Why else would the grandfather implore for Jacob to tell them what happened in his dying wish? But as we learn, the what happened wasn't that the kids in the home were all killed by a bomb, but rather they were going to be hunted by the very thing that killed the grandfather.
So I liked having my expectations twisted there. The setting was easy to immerse myself into, and the atmosphere of the piece was tangible. I loved the notion of a time-loop and how it worked, though I'll be the first to admit if there were any hiccups of explanation, I missed them while reading. I had too much fun going along with the story.
That being said, I had some other hiccups. While I loved seeing the pictures being described in the narrative, after a while, it became a kind of crutch and gimmick. Almost as if the author had gathered all these photos ahead of time and asked himself how he could write a story that would incorporate them all. And if that's how it went down, that's not a criticism. It's just that the book conditioned me to expect the photos as certain places in the narrative, unlike a partially illustrated novel, where every illustration is a surprise because you don't get one on every page.
The other hiccup I had was that I kept picturing the kids and narrator as younger than they were. That made one of the final pictures of the grandfather and Emma a little startling. If they were all sixteen/seventeen, okay, but the people in the picture looked early twenties at the youngest, so my disbelief was stretched a bit.
Still, I enjoyed the magic, the feel this book had of Neverland, where children don't grow up and how Jacob had to choose between staying and not growing up, and growing up in a friendless, magic-less world. Of course, there ended up being a third option, which launched the story in a new direction and launched a series at that, which surprised the hell out of me. It shouldn't have, because I don't think people write YAs any more without the intent of a sequel, but still. I was convinced this was a stand-alone.
My Rating: Couldn't Put It Down
I finished this in a day. It was too easy for me to fall into the rhythm and magic of this story, which bridges the fantasy and horror genres in such a way that I always felt tense, waiting for the next scare, yet also charmed by every magical discovery. While the book isn't perfect, and relies almost too much on the old-timey photos, I found it a refreshing and utterly enjoyable read, and a rather original one at that. I don't often read YA novels with guys in the lead, and the magic and world-building combined also had a touch of uniqueness. Needless to say, I'll be getting the sequel whenever it comes out, but I do hope the series or trilogy or whatever it will be maintains the interesting pull between enchantment and horror, because that's what really sold it for me.
Cover Commentary: You know, it really doesn't do much for me. It was months after I bought the book that I realized the little girl on the front was levitating, so yay to my powers of observation! /snark
But in all honesty, the cover really doesn't catch my eye. I don't mind old-timey photos or black & white photography, but there's really nothing here that's eye-catching. Still, it's a handsome book once you have it in your hands, and I don't begrudge that at all.
More Reviews: Check out the reviews book club participants have posted! If you reviewed this book but are not featured here, please comment below with a link to your review and I'll add it below.
A Bookseller Blog: Review Here
bardiphouka: Review Here
intoyourlungs: Review Here
juushika: Review Here
maibyers: Review Here
quippe: Review Here
shel99: Review Here
temporaryworlds: Review Here
Book Club Poll: Quick reminders: first off, if you're not officially participating in the book club, please do not feel obligated to answer the poll. Second, there's a lot of book club participants who are NOT on LJ and I want to make sure they're able to respond appropriately since I'm tracking for points. Because I'm evil like that. So if you're a book clubber, whether you read the book or not, please click the link below!
Click here to take the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children poll!
If you started the book but couldn't finish it, please comment and talk about the reasons why. What turned you off from the book? How far did you go before throwing in the towel?
And as you already know, the December Book Club selection is Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. Some of you may have started it already, but if need additional details on the title, just click here.