Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Title: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Author: Ransom Riggs
Series: Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children
Pages: 352
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Summary: A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets 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. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.
Review: I've been nervous to pick this book up because I was scared that the pictures would creep me out, but I did it for booktubeathon 2014 and I was right, the pictures are creepy shit! The story is decent but definitely weird. Overall, I found the book a bit slow and the language used sometimes was written odd. Miss Peregrine's wasn't scary but I feel like those pics will probably give me nightmares regardless. I did enjoy learning about all of the characters and why they were peculiar. I would like more on their backgrounds in the next book (fingers crossed). Unfortunately, no matter how interesting these characters were I could not connect. I will continue on with this series jut to see how it ends and I will most likely watch the movie when it comes out, even though it will probably creep me out. would recommend this to 15-18 year olds (only because its too scary for younger kids, but too immature for older kids) looking for a unique read.

About this author

I grew up in Florida, went to Kenyon College in Ohio, then film school at USC in LA, where I still live. I write books and screenplays, blog daily for mentalfloss.com, and make short films. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is my first novel. I'm really excited about it -- it was challenging and rewarding and I hope people like it. If you read that and like the found photographs in it, you might be interested in a book comprised entirely of found photographs that I have coming out January 2012 from HarperCollins. It's called Talking Pictures. You can find sneak peeks by doing a search for "mental floss talking pictures" (I included a number of images in blogs there) and I made a kinda-sorta book trailer for it, which is on my youtube page: youtube.com/ransriggs. Also, watch out for a Miss Peregrine book trailer, which I'm working on right now! I get to go to Belgium and film inside creepy abandoned chateaus, which I'm *really* looking forward to.