Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children by 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.
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.
Very rarely now, do I come across a story that manages to capture my utmost attention the whole way through. For me, a novel needs to have mystery, awe-inspiring prose and a sparkling kind of magic that enchants and entrances the whole way through. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar is one of those rare gems, sparkling amidst the blackened coals.
This book has it all. It's mysterious, original, slightly twisted in its own intense way, thought provoking, flawless, fantastic, magical to name a few! With the startling imagery and creepy photos that seem so unreal that they have to be manipulated, mixed with the realistic prose and dialogue, makes for a very startling, very visual story. One which can redefine not just fantasy, but storytelling as a whole.
I loved everything about this book. I loved how the author used poetry and letters and photographs to tell the story. I loved the characters, who in themselves were enigmas of the finest. I loved the scenes that he depicted that provided some very startling pictures in my head. Which seemed to unfurl before me by the pictures also provided. All which aided in telling the story.
For those of you who don't know, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children centres around our protagonist Jacob, a young boy who had a very close bond with his grandfather. As a young child, Jacob's grandfather used to regale him with stories of fantastical beasts, of peculiar children with spectacular abilities: children that could levitate, a scrawny boy that could lift boulders probably ten times his weight, a man with a mouth in the back of his head to name a few. Naturally, as he grew older, these tales became fairy stories, and were soon lost to his grandfather's mind. When tragedy strikes, and Jacob sees something unexplainable, something that he had heard of only in his grandfather's stories, his mind is thrown into jeopardy which ultimately ends up with him deciding to visit this island, Cairnhorn, where Miss Peregrine's Home is based.
This book had it all. It had creepy houses and it had children with superpowers, it had time travel and a woman who can turn into a falcon, because why the hell not? Each sentence was both moving and haunting, each sentence delivered a blow and touched somewhere inside of me. I really grew to know Jacob's character and his close relationship with his grandfather, I grew to understand his father's own relationship with his father and learnt some surprising discoveries that should have been obvious but they weren't. Because they were delivered in such a way that you were left wide eyed when things were finally revealed!
I can't say I had a favourite character. I loved them all! They each had their own quirks and idiosyncrasies. Traits that made them unique, though I did have a bit of a soft spot for Bronwyn, the girl with gargantuan strength. For me, she was exactly what her power represented. Strength, and definitely some courage thrown in there.
Much like Harry Potter, to which this had been compared, this story has some dark undertones but they are done so flawlessly, so subtly that you wonder if it was ever intentional. If you want a beautiful gem of a story, one that will inspire and awe you, then pick this up. It may just be the best thing you read this year!
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