Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I just realized that even though I finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children a few days ago, I never posted a review.  In my defense, I was camping at the time and the book ended up in Davan's room when we got home.  I'd initially completely disregarded this book as one I'd enjoy.  The photographs are weird and creepy, which is not my thing at all.  However, it is Jessie the Reader's favorite book and I decided to give it a chance based solely on that.  I'm actually glad I did.

I'm not going to go much into what it's about, as it's been out and known for a long time, so many of you probably already know.  If not, it's easy to find. 

I've seen a lot of differing opinions on Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.  I suspect part of the reason is the very reason I liked the book.  The creepy and weird photographs are a turn off for people that would like this story by and large.  It's not a creepy and weird story.  Or, at least, not as creepy and weird as the photographs make it seem.  There is some of that, but mostly it's a fairly straight forward telling of a modern fantasy with some time travel aspects.  If that doesn't sound straight forward, well, I still maintain that the telling of it is.

I liked Jacob alright.  His story came across to me in a different way that some do.  It felt like it was a middle age man telling the story of his teen years.  Jacob didn't sound like a teenager, although he did act like one.  I was okay with that.  I found the writing to be very readable.  The story line was engaging enough with some odd quirks that sometimes made me scratch my head, but weren't too glaring. 

The photographs were well integrated.  I found myself looking forward to the explanations.  I said to Davan while reading it (before looking at the blurb in the back about the photographs) that it was like Ransom had come across a collection of odd photographs and then challenged himself to create a story around them.  If that was what had happened (not quite), he did a good job of it.  Some things were explained well before the photograph showed up (like the white eyes) and it almost never sounded forced.  I was impressed with that.

All that said, I'm not really sure I'm going to move on with the series.  It was entertaining enough for one book, but I'm not so drawn in by the concept that I'm looking for more.