Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Published by Quirk Books
Published on June 7th, 2011
Cover Rating: 5/5
Story Rating: 4.5/5
Synopsis:
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of peculiar 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 decaying bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that Miss Peregrine's 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.
Review:
Well, first of all I shall tell you what the book is about, not entirely, but at least some of it for you to have a general idea of the book's story. It basically starts with a guy named Jacob, his grandfather always told him stories, when he was a small child, about the orphanage in which he was taken care of when the war was going on. In this orphanage, there was a headmistress named Miss Peregrine and several peculiar children who had special talents and as the adjective describes them, they had some sorts of peculiarities (kind of like superpowers, but with a fancy word). While Jacob's grandpa, Grandpa Portman, told him all of these stories filled with adventures and magical, creepy creatures, he showed him various pictures that accompanied his sort of believable stories. Jacob used to believe him, yet his parents would always tell him that they were not at all costs very true.
As Jacob grows he stops believing in his stories until one day, his grandfather died and Jacob sees some type of weird creature near his dead body, yet nobody believes him and they send him to therapy. As some days, weeks perhaps, go by he discovers a letter while getting rid of his grandfather's stuff and decides to look for the orphanage where Grandpa Portman was taken care of. He convinces his parents that the trip will help him with the healing of his grandfather's death and Jacob and his father travel from Miami to this small and very rural island called Wales.
Then, everything I could described from that point on would pretty much be a spoiler to those who would like to read the book and decipher the secrets by themselves. This book took a bit more time than it took me to read other books, but that doesn't really mean I did not enjoyed it. On the contrary, it really captured my attention every time I got more into the story and every time I saw the old and very vintage pictures the book contains. As I once heard or read on a review on this book, the book itself, as a physical thing, is a work of Art. I agree with this thought, yet it is Ransom Riggs first novel and it should be taken with more importance the area of imagination, which really adds up with the whole thought of this book becoming a masterpiece.
I would really enjoy reading more from Ransom Riggs and I am really considering buying the two following books, because the only thing I did not enjoy in this book was the fact that it left me hanging. Nevertheless, every single detail, from the grammar, to the descriptions and the pictures are very enjoyable and fashionably creepy. It is not a book that shall scare you in any way, but it does have a touch in the eerie and gruesome areas.
Quotes:
"That was our friendship: equal parts irritation and cooperation."
"When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking. Know what I mean?"
"How strange it must be, I thought, to find yourself, in the midst of and otherwise unremarkable afternoon, suddenly in the shadow of enemy death machines that could rain fire down upon you at a moment's notice."
"'I don't mean to be rude,' I said, 'but what are you people?'
'We're peculiar,' he replied, sounding a bit puzzled, 'Aren't you?'"
"'Forgive me. I continue to underestimate the breadth of your ignorance.'"
"And then she met my eyes and said, 'He could see the monsters.'"
"Millard sighed. 'Oh, lovely. Improvised suicide.'"
"'Someone's got to be the hero,' he replied, and walked off across the hull. 'Famous last words,' I muttered."
"'Will you quit shouting and let me bleed in peace!'"
"I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was."
Resources:
Synopsis and Quotes - Directly from my copy of the book Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Basic Information (Title, Publishing Date/ Company) - Wikipedia