Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #1)

Title: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #1)

Author: Ransom Riggs

Genres: Fantasy | Historical Fiction | Horror | Paranormal

Length: 382 pages

Source: Purchased

Format: Paperback

Rating: 4.95/5

Premise:

Jacob’s grandfather was always a bit peculiar, with his strange stories of monsters and odd children in the orphanage where he grew up.
As a young boy, Jacob marvelled in them, but as he grew up he stopped believing in them.
However, now Jacob finds himself on a quest that will answer his questions… and so much more.

Review:

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children had me enchanted from the first page. Just when I was wondering what the heck was wrong with me because no book seemed to come even close to fully satisfying me, this masterpiece comes along.

First, Jacob is the first teenage character whom I actually enjoyed reading about in a very long time, if ever. He sounded his age and still managed not to sound completely annoying, go figure!!

Secondly. Wow. Just wow. What a beautifully weaved story. There is tension and suspense and humour and even the slower moments were okay because they served to set the picture – and what a picture it was! The detail and contrasts were amazing.

The characters were brilliantly developed. Miss Peregrine was exactly what I thought a Headmistress should be – strict but understanding. All the children had their own voices and particular quirks. Event though I felt a bit overwhelmed at first because there were several, I quickly got to know who was who and wanted to know more about them and their personal history.

For the first time in longer than I can remember, the mystery was properly developed. Every time I thought hmm, there is something fishy about this or what do they mean by that? or what does that word mean?, I would get the resolution in good time, which is, I wouldn’t have to wait until the very last page to get closure, even though I had to wait of course because, you know, suspense.

And I always got resolution. Sure, there is still an aura of mystery about some things and obviously some were left open because there is a sequel (which I fully intent on purchasing as soon as possible), but I did get full closure for the events unveiled in this story and that, to me, is priceless.

Some plot twists dropped my jaw and brought the creepiness level to a whole new height. I was excited, scared and marvelled while reading this novel. Most of all, I always felt I was right there along with our main character.

The only thing I would like to see further developed would be some of the children that show up in pictures and we don’t really hear much about them throughout the story, if anything at all, like the twins. It is okay because it would be difficult to keep up with that many characters, but I would love to see them mentioned or at least what happened to them.

I would also like to know how exactly Enoch learned about its power. The wight’s explanation was insufficient. I wonder how one gets the idea to harvest hearts and put them in dead bodies. Speaking of which, this explanation is one of the examples of closure I was talking about earlier because I kept thinking, how the heck did these children learn about their powers, at least the less obvious ones?

This edition finishes with an interview to the author. Learning that the story was weaved around photographs he came across in real life brought a whole new dimension to how I feel about this novel. How brilliant does a writer need to be to incorporate them so well into the book and develop such an amazing, magical story?

I finished this book last night – I just could not put it down – and I am not ashamed to say I dreamt about monsters. That is how deeply it affected me.

If you want to get lost in a work of incredible fantasy fiction, I urge you to read it as soon as possible, preferably in one sitting.

Read from April 1st to April 3rd, 2016

GR Review