Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1)

by Ransom Riggs

[inlibrisveritas]

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is on that I looked forward to reading. I loved that the author used old odd photographs for the inspiration behind characters and plot points, and really wanted to see how it would play out. Unfortunately, this one turned out to be one that I didn’t enjoy all that much.

The story centers on Jacob as he discovered the Home for Peculiar Children after his listening to his grandfather’s many stories about such a place and monsters. I really wanted to like the story. It had so much going for it and I wanted to be richer in details than it truly was. I liked the idea of having people gifted with odd abilities and them having to fight against the odd monster (hello X-Men….) but this just sort of fell flat. While the parts were interesting, as a whole it just didn’t rise to the occasion. At times I found myself incredibly bored and I came to hate the usage of the photographs. After a certain point, the photos started to feel more like a crutch than an added detail, as the plot was noticeably forced to include those photos’ scenes. I can’t say I liked Jacob either. In fact, I can’t say much about him because he just sorts of fades into the back of my mind and is lost, he’s sadly a really forgettable character. Thankfully the ‘peculiar children’ were a much more interesting lot with a wide variety of abilities ranging from really amazing to incredibly creepy. They were really the only reason I kept reading despite my general disinterest.

In some ways, this book felt like a broken promise. It seemed to be unique and include a part of the author’s process of inspiration, but instead, it just felt kind of overused and gimmicky even though I haven’t seen anything like this before.

It’s a shame really, but I just don’t see myself continuing this series at all.