Review: Miss Peregrine's - Ransom Riggs

Release date: June 7th 2011

Published by: Quirk books

Number of pages: 352

Series: Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children #1

Plot:
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience.
 As our story opens, 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 who once lived here—one of whom was his own grandfather—were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.


Review:
Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children is a thrilling ,dark, wonderously strange and -wait for it...- hauntingly beautiful tale that should be considered a piece of art. 
Riggs succeeds to very delicately mix photography with tale as well as humour with seriousness and paranormal with World War II.
The excellent detail in which the world of peculiars, wrights and ymbrynes is desribed is truly astonishing. I loved every bit of it.


My favorite part of this book though, has to be the photographs. Oh, God, the photographs! 
They were so... vivid and, looking at them while flipping through the book right now, makes me wonder; Who were these people? What were their lives like? Why do they look so peculiar? 


I knew, before reading the book, that Ransom Riggs collects old photographs of people he does not know. But I did not, however, know that every single photo in Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children, are real, old photographs that various collectors have hoarded over the years.
This never stops to fascinate me. I can't help but think, maybe Riggs was meant to find these photographs. Maybe he was destined to write the story of the levitating girl with the tiara, the invisible boy, the girl who can hold fire in her bare hands and the boy who sees monsters. 
Call me paranoid, but I can't help but wonder. And now I probobly got you thinking the same thing. Or maybe not.

I didn't really connect with Jacob, - I did not get the impression of him being a teenager as much as a full-grown man - but they children however, Miss Peregrine's very peculiar children, they were just fantastic. All of their bright personalites really shone through the curious facade they put on themselves by being who they are.

I really loved them all, Emma, Enoch, Millard, Olive, Fiona, Hugh, Bronwyn...

The little island on wich the peculiar orphanage is set, Cairnholm, is described very carefully and very graphicly (both in 1940 and 2011) so it's easy to picture in your head. I loved Martin, the museum keeper, and Kev, the bartender, even the crazy farmers and sheepkilling Worm and Dylan. Cairnholm seems like a magical place, with or without peculiar children (I wold prefer it with the children though xD)

If you're looking for a tense, moving story that will stay with you for a long time, Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children by Ransom Riggs is perfect for you.

4.5 gumdrops