Author- Ransom Riggs
Published- June 7th, 2011
Quirk
352 pages
Obtained from PBS
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. Fiction is based on real black and white photographs. The death of grandfather Abe sends 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, and explores abandoned bedrooms and hallways. The children may still live.I really surprised myself by liking this book. Usually weird is not my thing. I don't typically gravitate towards horror or fantasy for that reason. Somehow though, this book really sparked my attention and grabbed hold of me until the last sentence.
I think the cover of this book is really neat. Throughout the story there are many gorgeous and quirky photographs of peculiar children. I love how they took one of the photographs for use on the cover. It really matched the story well and did a great job of attracting me, the reader.
The concept of this book and it's overall layout is pretty cool. We start out in America where we meet Jacob and his aging grandfather. Jacob is just a typical teenage boy, except for the fact that his family owns a bajillion drugstores and is mega rich. He hates working, but loves to hang out with his friends. And his Grandpa is just your typical Alzheimer's-crazed-but-completely-awesome grandfather. He loves to tell stories about this peculiar home in the UK that he escaped to during WWII.
One night Jacob finds his Grandfather dead in the woods behind his house and starts to go a little crazy with grief. He decides it would be best to travel to his Grandfathers roots and see if all of the crazy stories his Grandpa had told him were really true. He ends up travelling with his dad to the itsy bitsy island where the home supposedly was. That is where all of the craziness begins!
We are introduced to a group of people suspended in the 1960's who continue to live the same day every day. Time resets, so no one ever ages. I really loved this concept! It added a great dimension to the book because it almost added a completely different plot line that was merged somewhere towards the end.
The characters were all so unique. Each had a peculiar quality that was really neat! It went anywhere from being able to float to being able to bring inanimate objects to life to being invisible. How cool is that! Each person had a unique voice and you were definitely able to distinguish who was speaking even after the introduction of so many characters.
This book read super fast. The story was written in such a way that it flowed effortlessly and was coupled with pictures to complete your vision of the character being described. When I was little I loved reading books with pictures, so the fact that and adult book was written with pictures too is awesome to me!
At the end of the story there was this incredible plot twist that I never saw coming. Seriously, it made the whole book! I was seriously wondering how the author was going to bring the book to a close in such a short span of pages. But he did, and he was even kind enough to provide a huge cliff hanger.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The concept was unique, the characters were cool and I love the time travelling aspect. It definitely wasn't a tear-your-heart-into-a-million-pieces type of book, but it was still worth the read.
