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

TITLE: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

AUTHOR: Ransom Riggs

PUBLISHED: June 2011

GENRE: YA fantasy, male lead,

SERIES: Miss Peregrine #1

SETTING: Cairnholm Island, Wales

WHERE I GOT IT: ebook borrow from the library

ABOUT BLURB: The book is about a 16 year old boy named Jacob who after a horrific event convinces his parents to let him travel to an Island off the coast of Wales to discover more about his Grandfather and his collection of strange and eerie photographs. What he finds is an adventure like he never thought was possible.

EXPECTATIONS: I honestly didn't know what to expect. I knew that it was a popular YA novel but didn't really know anything more about it. I absolutely LOVE the cover picture of the little girl seemingly hovering a half a foot off of the ground. After I started reading it, I read a bit about the author and his concept for the book and found that the pictures in the book were found vintage photos from either the authors collection or of that of other collectors. He wrote the story around the pictures. A definite intriguing idea.

WHAT I LIKED: I loved that the book was written around the pictures and I enjoyed seeing then scattered through out the book. They were quite eerie and very very cool at the same time.

WHAT I HATED: As much as I loved the story as a whole and the authors depiction of the Island and his writing style I really didn't care to much for any of the characters. To me they were just a vehicle to ride to the end of the book. I could have inserted any character, male of female with any name and I still would have been like 'meh'. I did find the children to be interesting in that they each have their own peculiarity about them but as a individual not so much. They were simply just there.

HOW IT ENDED: The ending for me was okay. By this time I knew that there was going to be a second book in the series so I knew to not expect an actual ending per say. I feel that the main question of the book, Jacob's grandfather and his history, was solved but with any series the ending left me with a  whole new set of questions.

I feel very optimistic for their future though. It is like they are going to war,  which really they are, but what that outcome is, is not determined yet. It's sort of like when his grandfather first left the Island as well. History is repeating itself but in a different way. I know all of that seems sort of vague but I don't want to give to much away. What happened was really nothing I expected even though there were a few hints earlier in the book.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Even though the whole novel is shrouded in mystery and I could not put it down I could not identify with any of the characters. I didn't really care to much about any of them or their relationships to each other and others. Sure some of them were more interesting then others but I just didn't really care to know everything I could about them. I am still looking forward to where Jacob's next quest will take him though.

MY RATING: 3 out of 5 stars