Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs)

Book, blanket and cat - lovely :)

This book I bought on a whim. I had to order some new books from amazon. Or reorder, really, since some book loans sometimes extend themselves into gift giving, and I like to have a small library at work to share with my students. As I was finishing up my order of well loved familiar books, I saw this one advertized. It looked interesting enough, both the levitating girl on the cover, and the description:

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. Fiction is based on real black and white photographs.
 

The plot is catchy. It had me in its thrall immediately, but what can you expect when it is about a troubled teen finding himself struggling with monsters and impossible peculiarities, I love that kind of stories! I also love the photographs, although these are perhaps also the major drawback of the book. They come from museum collections, and Riggs has looked through them finding the strangest ones. Sometimes, though, it just feels like he writes parts of his story to make an image fit in. In these instances the story feels strangely constructed and fake. I liked the rest of the book, and the actual photos, enough to be able to forgive this, though. I particularly liked the ending, and this is not very like me. I am a sucker for the beginning of fantasy books, I love being allowed to get to know a new fictional universe. I often enjoy exploring the setting more than I enjoy the actual plot. This time, though, both are equally captivating.


As you can probably tell from the image, my book is a large print edition. This makes it an easy read. The language isn't too complicated either, and this book should suit most young adults, given that they enjoy non-realistic fiction. There is however *possible spoiler alert (white letters - mark the text to read it)* some time travel logic that needs to be followed, and that can, as you may know, be slightly complicated. I enjoyed this book very much, and wholehearedly recommend it!