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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the debut novel from Ransom Riggs. The idea for the book came when Riggs approached his publisher about creating a book using vernacular photographs, which Riggs collected. This book is the end result to that idea. The idea seemed odd to me, and the book definitely did not end up being what I thought it would.
The book follows sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman, whose grandfather grew up an orphan in the second World War. Jacob’s grandfather often told Jacob of the peculiar children with which he grew up in a home. He had photographs of these children, and Jacob was enchanted with these stories. As he grew older, he realized the stories were more fiction than reality, and stopped believing in his grandfather’s “fairy tales.” When his grandfather is killed by wild animals, Jacob is devastated and haunted by his grandfather’s last words, and sets out to find what they really mean. On his journey he encounters peculiar people and finds he is more like his grandfather than not.
This book bordered on a slow read at times, but it never got boring. At some point in the beginning I picked up on a few of the twists, but I never got the details exactly right. Riggs created a whole world a la Harry Potter with his own mystical creatures and horrifying villains. The book took an unexpected turn near the end, though I wasn’t as shocked as I assumed I would be.
As for ratings, I’d give this book a 4.1/5. I am trying to be less personal in my ratings and more constructive in relation to the storyline and how it was constructed. In all honesty I enjoyed The Name of the Star more than Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, but the writing style and execution of the latter earn it a better rating. It pulls more heartstrings and envelops you more into its world than TNotS seems to.
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