Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs Book Review

Confession: I am terrified of children. Especially those serious ones that just stare at you, which is why Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs was not ideal bedtime reading for me, but great pre-work breakfast reading.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs Book Cover

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

So Jacob is living a relatively charmed life, I mean he doesn’t have much in the way of friends or anything, but his family is mad rich. However, within the family there are the kooks. But every single family has those, right? Anyways, Jacob’s grandfather provides Jacob with a steady diet of stories about childhood monsters he faced. Jacob eventually grows skeptical, but then his grandfather trots out some photographs, which we get to see in the pages of Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. So, Jacob is still a skeptic until his grandfather is brutally murdered by one of the ‘monsters’ that his grandfather talked about. His gramps says some parting words and Jacob finds himself jetsetting to Wales.

In Wales, Jacob meets a motely assortment of people and because I don’t want to spoil anything, I will only say there are children and they are peculiar.

Ransom Riggs takes what could have been a cheesy gimmick and turns it into something more. You see, all of the photographs in Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children are real and found. They work perfectly within the story and do not jar or disrupt the plotline. I felt this was a unique reading experience. And while it could have gone totally wrong, it didn’t.

“I couldn’t stop myself, so I thought about all the bad things and I fed it and fed it until I was crying so hard I had to gasp for breath between sobs. I thought about how my great-grandparents had starved to death. I thought about their wasted bodies being fed to incinerators because people they didn’t know hated them. I thought about how the children who lived in this house had been burned up and blown apart because a pilot who didn’t care pushed a button. I thought about how my grandfather’s family had been taken from him, and how, because of that my dad grew up feeling like he didn’t have a dad, and now I had acute stress and nightmares and was sitting alone in a falling-down house and crying hot, stupid tears all over my shirt. All because of a seventy-year-old hurt that had somehow been passed down to me like some poisonous heirloom, and monsters I couldn’t fight because they were all dead, beyond killing or punishing or any kind of reckoning. “

pg. 104

The book is told in first person from Jacob’s perspective. I found him easy to connect with. At first, he is desperately lonely, but then when he forms some true friendship bonds, we the reader get to experience that first hand joy of finding ‘your people’. Kind of like BEA, when you meet with your friends for the first time. Although, not all is fun and games, as there is a very palpable danger.

You see, the monsters mentioned in the beginning of the book by Jacob’s grandpa is real. They are these dudes with tentacles on their face who pretty much enjoy eating peculiar children, meaning the children are in danger. However, to be completely honest I found the child photographs much more scary than the monsters.

My biggest complaint is Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children ends on a cliffhanger. Unfortunately I’ve grown weary of cliffhangers and just want books to have real endings. This one, well, let’s just say it opens that way for a sequel.

Disclosure: Received for review.

Other Reviews:

Books I Done Read
The Book Smugglers
Forever Young Adult
Lisa Is Busy Nerding

Purchase Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs here. *FYI I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy things from Amazon after clicking link.

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April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.
About April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

Comments

  1. Haha, I was one of those serious, staring children when I was younger.
    Anyway, I love the concept behind Miss Peregrine’s! I’m glad the photos helped rather than hindered the story.
    Great review! I seriously need to get my hands on this book.

  2. I loved the pictures too! Especially when I found out they were all real historical photos. But I agree with your dislike of the cliffhanger ending. I was really hoping this book would be a stand-alone. I don’t know that I thought it necessarily needed to be the start of a series. At this point I’m just pumped when I read a stand-alone, feels so good to enjoy a single book that ends, lol.

  3. I saw the trailer for this book a few weeks back and it kind of creeped me out, too. But my copy is on the way, so I’m looking forward to reading it and looking at the photos. Preferably in broad daylight. 😀

  4. I hear ya about the cliffhanger thing. Not to mention how all books seem to be series now instead of just stand-alones. What happened to just a good, stand-alone book? Are those “out” now?

  5. I think I may have been one of those children you are afraid of! xD
    Anyway, I got this book but still haven’t read it. But just in case, I’ll start to read it in the morning. I get scared pretty easily and then I can’t sleep.
    Thanks for the review!

  6. I am still unsure of whether I want to read this book. I am not sure where my hesitation comes in, because the creepy children aspect actually interests me.

  7. Great review–it will probably be the closest thing I get to reading the book. The cover is just too creepy.

  8. Haha, I was one of those staring-kind of children back then too. I was.. weird, and nerdy. Anyways, awesome review. The cover looks really interesting. Though I don’t want to read any spooky stuff! 😀

  9. Sometimes I can deal with cliffhangers if the book is good and I want to read more. If it’s bad or mediocre, then I just want to get it over with.

  10. I loved this book so, so much! It was totally unique!
    Oh, and I am totally with you on the serious staring children! =/ My mom has the creepy old portraits of super creepy children everywhere….

  11. Denise Z says

    Thank you for the review – so far I have only heard snippets about this book and already wanted to read it. However, I am with you on the cliffhangers, guess a little lemon just went in my tea 🙂 Thanks for sharing today.

  12. Nothing say “Good Morning!” like some free-kay kiddos! Kind of like waking up and finding out there’s no hot water, eh? Awesome review – this is one I’ve kinda/sorta been playing with reading. I like the horror aspect of it – real monsters and real photographs make for a good combo, but I know what you mean – some characters and story arcs are series worthy, but I love it when we get a full story in one book. Feel rare nowadays.

  13. Aw man, I’m a bit put out to hear that this ends in a cliffhanger! Still, this sounds like a really good read – even if it’s something I usually don’t pick up.

  14. you’re so right – he takes what could potentially be a gimmick and makes it an interesting and thrilling read. nice point.

  15. Great review of Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. Though I hate cliffhanger ending because it’s making me wonder what happened to the character, etc. Still s book is worth checking. I love suspense thriller books! Thanks!

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