~Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children~

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a beautiful work of art and the first novel by Ransom Riggs. Sadly, I didn’t love it nearly as much as I wanted to, and am still feeling conflicted by it. 

The book includes really cool old photos that are all taken from private collections and I applaud Ransom Riggs’s ability to construct a story around so many odd images. 
Where this book failed is that I don’t believe quite as much attention to detail was involved in the actual telling of this tale as was put into the presenting of it. Yes, this book is visually striking. But after a strong beginning, the story falls a little flat. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children features sixteen year old Jacob Portman, who is just starting to wonder if there is some truth to the crazy stories his grandpa has told him his entire life. Stories of strange birds, monsters and, of course peculiar children living together in an orphanage on a tiny island off the coast of Wales. I feel like this book has a lack of character development, insight, and emotions.


The peculiar children here are defined by their oddities, rather than their personalities. Jacob spends a considerable amount of time with children who are considerably younger than him (grade school and middle school age) and the interactions aren’t any different than when he is spending time with adults or other teens. A sweaty, hormonal, impatient sixteen year old boy should have a big brother complex, a power complex, or some reaction to spending time with younger kids, but Jacob does not. Jacob himself should be an interesting kid to read about. He is a bit of a loner, doesn’t have any friends and has (predictably) emotionally absent parents. Yet, we don’t see him struggle with his own oddness or social issues. When adversity strikes, Jacob steps up to the plate.


Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children isn’t a bad story. Not by any means. It’s a decent story in an eye-catching book and features a new paranormal world that will surely fascinate tons of people. However, all of the attention put to the looks, the plot and the action left the characters to suffer. Plus, there is one major issue with the fantasy aspect that was never explained and that itself bothered me more than anything else. If you don’t mind a small spoiler, go ahead and read (this is something that becomes introduced around page 150).

It’s doubtful that I will read the next in this series. I am however eagerly anticipating Ransom Riggs book of found photographs, Talking Pictures ,which will be released next year. His writing style is not for me, but he (apparently) has an amazing collection of found photos.