Book Review :: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Series: Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #1
on June 7th 2011
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror
Pages: 352
Goodreads

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of curious photographs.

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.

Last updated on 7 June 2022

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What is Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children book about?

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children tells the story of Jacob. He has grown up with his grandfather’s crazy stories of the children he used to know in his past, children who could levitate and do other incredibly odd things.

For a while, Jacob believe him and hung upon his every word. But as he grew older, he released that the stories were just that – stories. That was until he saw what he saw in the woods that day. That was until his grandfather was taken from him. That was until he was sent to a Doctor because everyone thought he was mad. That was until he discovered the old abandoned house on an island off the coast of Wales.

Jacob and his father, who is adamant he is going to write a book on birdlife, make their way from America to Cairnholm Island where Jacob’s grandfather grew up. While Jacob’s father is doing his bird research, Jacob wanders the island, trying to find clues and piece together his grandfather’s life. One day, he finds an old home, broken and in ruin, not a soul in sight. But then he sees a girl, Emma, and she looks remarkably like a girl in one of his grandfather’s old pictures.

After following her, Jacob discovers an orphanage full of children who can do peculiar things. They are looked after by Miss Peregrine, who is their carer and mother figure.

He learns that the orphanage, which is fully furnished and as it was decades prior, is actually in a time loop in 1940. The day happens over and over again, and while the children don’t do the same things every day, it is always the same day. They live there because if they were to live in the real world, people would make fun, and they would do nasty things. It’s safer for the peculiar children to live in a loop.

As Jacob tries to figure out what it was that killed his grandfather (and why only he can see them), the other peculiar children, and Miss Peregrine, put themselves out there to help him.

My thoughts on Miss Peregrine’s 

This book is one that I hope to re-read a multitude of times in my life. The collection of photographs scattered in among the pages of the story, while odd to some, perhaps a tad terrifying to others, added so much to an already incredible story that it’s one of the only books I own that I used a bookmark for. That’s how beautiful I thought it was, and how much I wanted to keep it in a condition that was worthy of its pages.

I loved this book. A lot. So many of the reviews on Goodreads are negative, or only a few stars, and while I can, at times, see where they’re coming from, I disagree. Everything about this book made me want to read the next one and makes me want to see the movie by Tim Burton that comes out near the end of this year.

Written in first person, you only ever know what Jacob knows, though at times it was easy enough to guess the odd thing here and there. It did make some of the end realisations interesting and unexpected, though, and you really felt what Jacob was feeling in terms of the shock and the pain he felt.

Having a time loop was very Groundhog-Day-esque, but I really liked the concept of it, how they were able to step out of the time loop into the real world (though not for long), and how there were many time loops around the world, run by different people like Miss Peregrine.

My favourite thing about this book is the photographs. Ransom Riggs, a collector of old photographs, used the images to enhance the story, and while at times I think he added a few plot details in order to use a really creepy or awesome photo, overall they definitely added to the reading experience.

While I haven’t yet, I will most certainly be reading the second in this series, Hollow City, and continuing on with the third, Library of Souls after that.

Have you read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children? Or maybe the series?