Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

This is the second time I have read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. It didn’t appeal to me the first time I read it. According to my colleague, it gets better in later books. As much as I can, I push through it this time. I’m determined to finish the book and see if my colleague is right. I’m hoping that giving it another chance will pay off.

Unfortunately, my opinion has not changed. The story is nothing more than a few creepy pictures and some weird characters. There is too much emphasis placed on the telling of the stories rather than developing their plot. As a result, the story let me down. Despite what it claims to be, it was nowhere near as creepy or strange as it seems.

Character development is lacking. In the book, it portrayed the children in a manner similar to a circus freak. Despite their eccentricities, they have a little personality of their own. Their portrayal is no better than a circus freak, and the reader does not feel empathic towards them, and they are sidelined.It is slow. It focuses too much on its own meta-ness that I lost interest. As the book progressed, I became bored and the later parts were a real drag.

Despite having some good ideas, and the gimmick with the photos would have been nice, the book’s ideas aren’t fully developed. This book could have been better with more editing and reinforcement of the concept.

Unfortunately, this is a messy book. It lacks structure and clarity, making it difficult to follow. The ideas could have been better presented if the book had been professionally edited. I won’t continue this series.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel follows the same story of the book of the same name.

Jacob was brought up on his grandfather’s stories of a peculiar group of children he claimed to have spent his childhood with. Jacobs stops believing him until the day his grandfather is attacked by a monster. No one believes Jacob of course and a large chunk of the novel is given over to his therapy sessions, however these are skimmed over in this version. I liked the concise nature of the graphic novel; it’s a story about childhood monsters and make-believe being reality after all. Somehow, with less padding, Jacob seems older, more like the teenager boy he is supposed to be.

The artist is Cassandre Jean who does wonderful things with colour to highlight the differences between Jacob’s rather grey world and the Narnia-like quality of the loop. Not helped by the black and white photography in the novel, the world came across a little grey and depressing and is brought to life in this version. I did think the house was out of character for the location and period (it looked more suited to America than Wales) but that’s a minor quibble in an otherwise excellently illustrated book.

It’s not full of photographs. There are glimpses of them within the drawings but they are not the same feature element at in the novel. We don’t really need them to bring the world alive though, and the peculiar children become a bit more consistent. Plus there’s loads of comic “sound effects” which made me smile. I’d recommend this as a lovely stocking filler for fans of the original.

One more thing, this edition contains an illustrated preview of the second novel, Hollow City. I feel a bit spoiled now and want illustrated previews instead of extracts for every book now, it is such a lovely idea. It also gives a slightly better ending, something that a lot of people disliked in the original. It says “there is more to come” rather than a gentle riding off into the sunset approach. This ending makes you want to read on.

Review copy provided by publisher.

For a while, Jacob believed his grandfather’s tales of the home he grew up in, on a remote island off the coast of Wales. He even had a collection of photographs to back them up. But Jacob soon grew out of the fairy tales, seeing manipulation in all the photographs, until one day, his grandfather is attacked. In the shadows, Jacob sees something. Something that may just prove his grandfather wasn’t crazy. Now everyone thinks Jacob is crazy. With agreement from his psychiatrist, Jacob sets off to Cairnholm Island to visit the place where the stories started.

It was a wonderful idea to build up a story around vintage photographs. The photos are genuine (anyone with an interest in the history of photography will know that people liked manipulating them from the start) and the characters are born out of them. In places, it felt a bit forced and the recurring photos of Emma were obviously not the same girl, but overall, it lifted the book from a simple adventure to something a bit special. Many of the photos are incredibly creepy and those at book group who read ebooks said the unexpected nature of them made them more of a shock when they just appeared on the screen!

The story itself isn’t particularly unique. There’s a home for children with unique powers, even if they are a little quaint (and seemingly pointless at times). There’s an is-he-mad-or-are-they-real plotline. There’s a Narnia-esque doorway to another world and a boy who doesn’t have friends at home but discovers them where he never expected. But I guess these things have become popular tropes because they do work.

The language wasn’t always consistent with the period. The peculiar children certainly didn’t speak like they were in the 40s. I also spent a lot of time trying to work out how the time-defying postal system worked. It’s probably a book best not over-analysed; an otherwise easy and fun read.

I had thought it was a standalone book so it was a bit disappointing when it didn’t really end. It’s clearly set up for a second instalment (out January 2014) and I’m not sure how the photographs are going to work when it’s not about discovery and history. Jacob kept relating the things he was seeing back to his grandfather’s photos or the ones he found in the house. It’s can’t carry on like that; will they be taking photos as they go? I will probably end up reading it just to find out.

I gave Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children 7/10 at book group and I've been dithering over a star rating. The text itself is probably only 3 stars for me but the photography is a huge bonus...so 4 it is.