Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

This past week I’ve been trying to catch up on all the books I’ve missed since I’ve been at BYU. And a lot of those books were teen fiction. I’m addicted, I don’t know what else to say. I promise I will make some pompous post on Russian novels and their ability to invigorate your soul, but for now you’re stuck with teen lit. 

Now on to introductions. 

For a couple of years now I’ve noticed the different approaches new authors are taking to narrating. We’ve hit upon this amazing literary time where authors are branching out to be heard and it’s inspiring new and fascinating ways of writing.

A book I recently read that displays this need for a new spin is:

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Jacob has grown up on his Polish grandfather’s tales of being chased by monsters and finding refuge on an island filled with peculiar children. Even though his grandfather offered snapshots of his old life, Jacob believed that his stories were mere exaggerations based on his grandpa’s real trials escaping the Nazi’s during WWII. But when Jacob finds his grandpa brutally murdered in his backyard and a bizarre creature hovering in the surrounding forest he decides to travel to his grandfather’s island to find the truth.

What makes this story different than the rest is the pictures that accompany the narrative. This author found authentic vintage photos from various collectors and he spotlighted them throughout his novel weaving them directly into the story line.

Now I’ve read a lot of creepy scary novels—this is the girl who spent her preteens reading every R.L Stine Fear street, Mary Downing Hahn, and Mary Higgins Clark novel she could find—BUT this book was different. It got under my skin and terrified me like only freaky blue Asian children can.

It wasn’t necessarily the text, it was pretty tame, it was those grotesque pictures. Quite honestly I had to stop looking at them because they induced an irrational fear that left me finishing the novel in my bathroom at 2 in the morning because heaven knows it’s the safest room in the house.

Ok the rant on the pictures is over. What I really want to say is that this book was new, different, and disturbingly interesting. So lock your bathrooms and read away.

Rating: 3/5

-Lora

P.S. Here's a preview of some of the pictures. 

And my personal favorite, the clowns...

 Oh how I hate these clowns.