Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs
My rating:      

I almost deserve to be disappointed. I read this book because I was lured in by the cover. At one time or another, we’ve all been victim to book jacket or title seduction. The book jacket enticed me with the false promise of an interesting, creep filled Halloween styled read.

This book was a disappointment in just about every way. Ransom Riggs crafted a novel around a collection of delightfully odd vintage photos. I can see how this collection of photos became a muse. However the execution was totally lacking. The novel was awkwardly crafted around these photos. It felt like a writing assignment gone too far.  

Anyone who has taken a writing class probably knows what I'm talking about. The instructor assigns a photo, and the student is asked to create a short story or narrative around the photo. They served as character crutches, rather than Riggs using them as a platform to describe something additional about the character.  He may have well said “refer to photo 34.” His writing ability fell flat. The prose ranged from clunky to non-existent with the sophistication of a bologna sandwich.

Sixteen year old Jacob is the witness to his grandfather’s brutal murder by something he believes to be a Monster. His family reacts to his testimony by sending him to therapy. Jacob suffers from stereotypical rich kid problems, and comes across as a total whiner.  No wonder why he doesn't have any friends. Jacob seeks answers by traveling to a remote island off the coast of Whales in search of orphanage that his grandfather so-called home just before he left to fight in WWII. When Jacob arrives at the Island he quickly realizes that all of those stories and photos of Peculiar children were in fact real and not trick photography and lavish stories of his childhood. From here a vague plot and problematic time travel logic unravel.

The only thing that saves this from being a one star review is the photos themselves. It’s hard to give Riggs much credit for this. I wish that someone else would have gotten a hold of the photos and woven them into a more creative and evocative novel worthy of the vintage inspirations.