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

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jacob has always thought that his life was ordinary. Boring. Stuffy even. He would never had said that his life was interesting or weird or peculiar. But that was before. Before he found his grandfather dead in the woods outside of his house. Before he saw a monster in the trees.

Now Jacob wants answers, because since that night, he has had nightmares that are haunting him. The only way to do that is to go to the island where his grandfather went to school and ask the teacher: Miss Peregrine.

With the help of his psychiatrist, Jacob was able to convince his mom and dad that he needs to go to the island and visit the school. So while his father was off taking photos of birds for his new book, Jacob was roaming around the island to find the school. And at first, he just found the skeleton of the school, since it was bombed in the second world war.

But after much snooping and getting chased through town and running after a girl who looked remarkably like a photo his grandfather had when HE was a teen, Jacob figured out what the big secret that his grandfather kept from him: he is peculiar with a peculiar skill. And because of his peculiarity, a whole slew of people are after him to gain powers for their own purpose.

Now Jacob has to decide what to do: stay with his new friends who he feels a real connection to, or go back to his parents who are supposed to love him unconditionally, but will never understand this side of Jacob's life. But Jacob has to decide quickly, because time is running out for the house full of peculiar children, and one choice will be made, willingly or not.

I have been wanting to read this for a long time, but wanted to wait for the 3rd book to be out so I can do a massive read of the series at once. And since my two book clubs are reading this for the month of July, it was the perfect time to gather all three books!

Sadly, I watched the movie first, which is always a terrible idea for me, and so I was comparing this book to the movie a lot. There were a lot of similarities, but there were also a lot of differences. I definitely like the book better because there was a lot of growth of the characters and there was a better plot line laid out to be continued in the next couple of books.

And I liked how real Jacob was. He was an angst-y teen boy - so very realistic. But he was also very curious and wanted answers to unsolved questions. It's funny, because he called himself weak and scared all of the time, but I never got that impression from him. I always thought that he was brave and selfless - especially toward the end when he met the group of peculiar children.

The romance between Jacob and Emma is just weird - for two reasons. One, they are just awkward around each other. I never got the impression that Jacob liked her until they were kissing. I need a little bit more than "she has a knife against my throat" to "oh, I like her so much"! Just doesn't work for me. And two, Emma and his grandfather had a thing some 50 years ago... I mean... obviously nothing came of it, but it's still just really, really weird right? Or maybe it's just me.

I love the other peculiar children and think their gifts are amazing! I'm not sure which one I would want myself, but I think any unusual gift or talent would be awesome to have. Though I know they would disagree, saying that it outcasted them, but still. Pretty awesome.

I think Ransom Riggs is phenomenal in the fact that he came up with this story from just a bunch of unusual photos. It was like, one day he found them, came up with a story about each character, and then decided to write it down and create a story! Brilliant! Just amazing!

I'm so glad that I finally got around to read this, and now I'm off to dive into the second novel to see what else is going to happen! :)

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