* Audio version of this review will appear on the Book Review Podcast - Reading in Bed at the start of June (readinginbed.bandcamp.com)
Blurb:
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.
Strengths:
The story is told through a combination of narrative and a mix of vernacular and found photography from the personal archives of collectors listed by the author and also a film from Tim Burton (which did okay from what I understand but not well enough to warrant a sequal or sequals).
The book itself has a interesting idea behind where reading up on the book, it was originally intended to be a picture featuring photographs the Author Riggs had collected, but he was advised from a editor as a guide to put together a narrative. The result was a story about a boy who follows clues from his grandfather's old photographs, tales, and his grandfather's last words which lead him on an adventure that takes him to a large abandoned orphanage on Cairnholm, a fictional Welsh island.
The book does have great atomsphere and I felt like the Author knew Wales when Jacob went there and the setup was great when Jacob’s grandfather reveals certain aspects of his life to them before then meeting his own fate and the use of the other children, which could have easily span into young X Men territory easily did work.
Weaknesses:
Too slow moving if I am honest and the book fell flat around the 200 to 250 page mark for me and didn’t recover for me and was nowhere as creepy or weird as the hype I’ve read it was.
The use of the pictures frequently throughout the book don’t fully work for me and in places the pictures which in the first half kinda worked in the 2nd half, it started to feel like the author either ran out of ideas or got tangled up in the world he was creating and wrote himself into a corner.
The film version of this which I have seen I think was far from perfect, but felt a lot more clearer and cut out a lot of the fat and confusing sub plots that were littered throughout this book.
A shame as it got off to a good start, but I can’t recommend this because of what happened in the 2nd half of the book – a better editor would have helped the book not fall off the edge of a cliff which is what happened to me during the last 100 – 150 pages of this book.
I really wanted to like this book but alas it only gets 6/10
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