Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children #1

by Ransom Rigg

This book has been quite popular and a bestselling on depositary book for a while now but when I saw Tim Burton movie trailer I had to read it.

The protagonist of this story is Jacob, a quite spoiled and detached sixteen-year-old, who after his grandfather -Abraham Portman- dies he sets journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, moved only by the last words his grandad said before dying:

"Jacob here it is not safe. Find the bird, in the loop on the other side of the old man's grave. September third 1940...Emerson, the letter tell them what happened."

With little clues and knowledge Jacob will soon discover if his grandad's childhood stories about Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children were an old man madness or reality.

This book had such an amazing premise, who wouldn't dig right in a book full of kids with weird ability ready to bust some monster arse, add up some creepy vintage photo and I'm sold!

What did disappoint me was the childish writing style. Every time a tragic or scary situation happened in the book, the mood was instantaneously lifted with a jokes, disney like. It could have done without so many jokes; a bit more creepiness and horror would have made the story more suitable for an older reader, like this remain nothing more than a simple paranormal middle-grade novel.

The characters were well presented, each one with their own personality and unique ability, like the ability of giving life to inanimate bodies or objects like Dr. Frankenstein, or the uncommon gift of having bees living inside of you; all of the kids in Miss Peregrine's Home are peculiar and most of them are quite creepy.

Eventrought I didn't like Jacob personality -finding him spoiled, immature and annoying at time- I did appreciate that he was well characterized and his development as our story goes on.

In a story with creepy mutant kids you would expect some kick-arse battle, instead we get some lame quick fights.

The action takes a while to start in the book and doesn't last long, but considering it's the first book in a series we can wish this was only the beginning of our adventure.

One of the most interesting things about this book are the pictures, from which the story takes hold. All the pictures are authentic, vintage found photographs, and with exception of a few that have undergone minimal post processing, they are unaltered.

*two pics of the peculiar children from the book.

In his whole it's a good book with a nice story, but eventrought it is about special kids, it's not special itself. I was expecting more, It could have been more. Let's hope this was a slow start for an amazing series!

3/5 STARS

Here is the book trailer: