Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

You know when you carry around a book and wonder what people are thinking when they see you with it? Well with this one I didn't have to wonder. I was frequently stopped by people saying, "Oh that book is SO good!" or "My friend read that and told me to read it because it's amazing." Those that weren't familiar with it stopped me with questions on what it was about. The cover itself is enough to make one curious.

The problem with people asking me what it's about is, that's a very hard question to answer. I have found that most quality fantasy books are difficult to explain briefly and most people well versed in fantasy will understand what you mean when you say just that.

First thing of note, this is a YA book which I did not know until I went to look for it in the bookstore. The main character is Jacob, a 15yr old boy that through a series of sad & confusing events discovers he is "peculiar" and what that means. He finds a time look where Miss Peregrine is guarding a number of other peculiar children and the plot thickens! While reading what stood out to me the most was how cleverly the author wove the pictures into the plot. Some of these pictures area actually quite famous but have little explanation. The world Ransom Riggs has established is both fantastical yet believable. As the reader you want to believe that these time loops exist within our own world. For me the only draw back to this book was that I did not feel invested in the characters. I found how he took the people from the picture & made them characters interesting but I did not really care what happened to them. At times that made it hard for me to finish, and I am not sure that I will read the other books in the series but I am really grateful that I read this one. I would also probably recommend it to someone that enjoys YA books but is apprehensive about reading fantasy. I feel like the realistic connection to the real world makes it more relate-able for those that have difficulty following when an author builds a world from scratch.