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

The protagonist Jacob has a crazy grandfather who treasures a box of old photographs. These creepy photos of a floating girl, of a boy covered in bees, of a suit with nobody holding it up. Jacob's grandfather says that the people photographed were his friends when he lived in an orphanage during WW2. His stories are dismissed as which make's Jacob's family suspicious that the grandfather is infidel, a lunatic and a traumatized soldier. Jacob is present when his grandfather is killed by a monster. The question then remains whether the grandfather was crazy at all.

A wonderfully creepy collage from the book.

The protagonist was quite bland. He is diagnosed with a mental illness soon after his grandfather's death. Quite understandably, Jacob is a wimp at the beginning. All of his opinions have come from other people as he is terrified in believing his own opinions. Very quickly, he finds his own feet and jumps to the other extreme, believing everything he thinks is genius when he discovers Miss Peregrine's Home. To be honest I couldn't take Jacob seriously at times but I see the potential for a fantastic character arc in the following books. Additionally, I found that this book didn't provide many answers at all. It could be that the author has no idea or (what I'm hoping) that we are building up to something big. I'm optimistic that the unique premise of the series will lead in a new direction previously unknown to YA fiction.

A highlight of the book (which is why I  highly recommend a physical copy) was the inclusion of the grandfather's pictures. Readers are given a taste of the photos' creepiness from the book's cover art. Ransom Riggs is a visual writer; he has written for the screen before and his director's vision translates well in this book. If the text doesn't unsettle you the pictures certainly will.

Overall I give this book a 3.5. It had a unique premise and was fun to read. Although I wasn't really impressed by the protagonist's development, Jacob offers opportunity for exciting character development. I will probably continue this series in future but it isn't my top priority.

Let me know if you've read this series and what you thought. Ciao!