Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I don't know how I managed to pick up this book. Perhaps it was the word "peculiar" in the title, a word for which I have a certain affinity. Perhaps it was the creepier than normal black and white cover picture of a little (dare I say it, ugly?) girl wearing a crown and levitating off the ground. Both of those factors made the book interesting to me where I wouldn't normally gravitate to this genre of YA fiction. But now that I've finished it, I am glad that I read it. Still, that doesn't mean the book is without its flaws. 

I find the story entertaining. Even though I'm not a teen, I can relate to the feelings of 16 year old Jacob as he tries to discover whether the relationship he had with his grandfather was based on lies or the truth. Then the grandfather is killed in a brutal way, and Jacob sets off for an island off the coast of Wales where his grandfather lived during WW II. His father goes along in order to bird watch, but Jacob is slowly drawn into a time loop, where the children who knew his grandfather still live, unchanged by the passage of time. Jacob finds out how he is peculiar, like his grandfather, and why his father never had as close a 
relationship with the old man as he had. He also finds out that his grandfather 
was telling him the truth, about the home, about the children, and even about the monsters that exist in this world. 

I'm not a reader of science fiction, so the time loop business was not a" that easy to understand for me. I also felt that Jacob's special power didn't seem special at a" (compared, for example, to the girl who can make fire or the boy who can bring dead things back to life), as the other children seemed able to see the monsters pursuing them as we". However, I do find the end dramatic and 
interesting, and I like the author's style of writing. Some aspects of the story are hackneyed and predictable, but I especially like the voice that Jacob has, with his teenage angst coming through in the narration as he finds his way to truth and love. 

Would I recommend it? I already have. My husband is reading "Miss Peregrine's 
Home for Peculiar Children" right now, and I'm curious to see if he likes it more or less than I do, since he's a frequent reader of science fiction. I hope my teenagers might read it as we", although I have a large print edition, which may not be cool enough for them. 

Submitted by Gerti