Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Childrenby Ransom Riggs
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. (goodreads.com)
After a slight absence from the blog & internet world due to personal life hell, health and hospitals (not mine) I am trying to catch up on blog posts. On the bright side, with all the drama in my life I have not had time to read much, so I am only 3 posts behind. ;)Exciting note! This was my 100th book read in 2011!I'd also like to say a big ol' thank you to Stephanie of Stephanie's Written Word for sending me a copy of this book!I'm going to start my review by stating I am not entirely sure how to categorize this book. I suppose it's YA, but it seems like it can fit just as well in the regular adult fiction section. Also, it's like fiction, thriller, fantasy, paranormally all mushed together. It's a very interesting and fun mix of stuff.Just the physical book itself is amazing. From the weird wallpaper-type background for each of the chapter numbers, to the old photos slipped between the pages and the handwritten entries... the entire book is bursting with character. Once you start reading that character spills off the pages as well.The entire time Jacob was on the island and looking into his grandfather's past, I felt the hair stand up on my arms. The place is both creepy and enticing. You want to explore it and you want to run away.Jacob was a likeable main character, too. I often forgot he was 16 and thought him much older. I had to remind myself a few times that he's just a "kid".I am not entirely certain how to write about this story without giving things away. It was an adventure just turning the page to see what was going to happen next and to figure out what exactly was going on.The writing is superb and what I call intelligent. This is a book I wish I was told I had to read in high school. Yes, I would have liked it then. Just because I had to read something didn't mean I wasn't going to enjoy it. Sure, many of the books I was forced to read were dullsville, but if I had options like this book and The Day the Falls Stood Still, I would have been much happier.One particular thing that amuses me is when I read something, totally random in a book and then either the next book, or one soon after talks about the same thing. In this instance it was the Bog Men, there was one on display in the "museum" on the island in Wales that Jacob travels to. The legend is explained how men thought that throwing themselves in the bog made them eternal (or something like that). I'd never even heard of Bog men until I read Lesley Livingston's One Every Never earlier this summer. Of course this caught my eye when I read it in Miss Peregrine's... I like things like that!The only thing that bothered me in the book was my constant thinking that all the kids in the Home were, you know, KIDS. I was picturing Emma as some cheeky 5-year old the entire time, when she suddenly becomes a love interest!! Gah! Imagination you are thwarting me! It was sort of hard to keep in my head that these are teens as well as kids.Either way, the story is beautiful and the mystery is mysterious and creepy and with with t