Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

This is my second read of this book, the first time being seven years ago. It was a three star for me back then, and it's a three star now too. Gosh, I did not remember anything from this book when reading it again just now. There were parts of this I liked a lot, but also some parts I didn't care for at all. A bit disappointing.

I do not really have all that much to say about this book. But shall try my best to write down my thoughts. The writing was good; not perfect, but I didn't have many issues with it. Though I had issues with the main character. I simply could not connect with him at all. Wanted to adore him, but I did not. He was not easy to like. Hmm.

This book is told from the point of view of Jacob. The book begins with learning about him, who he is, and who his family is. I did not care for any of them, honestly. But then there was his grandfather. I liked reading about him, though he is only there for a short while, before getting brutally murdered. Then there's a time jump of nine months, which Jacob spent being depressed and scared. I think I did not care much for him because all that was skipped, and then comes back to him suddenly being pretty much okay again, believing that the monster he thought saw the night his grandpa died was not real. His grandfather used to tell him stories. Stories about children that he knew while growing up, about monsters too. Jacob believed him when he was little but not as he grew up.

This book tells the story of Jacob. From when he lost his grandfather and how he dealt with it. Well, how he didn't deal with that. I sadly did not care very much at all. Found those first pages to be pretty boring, to be honest. The book became more interesting when Jacob finally figured out what his grandfather told him as he was dying. And so Jacob finally travels to an old island where his grandfather spent a lot of his time when he was younger. I liked reading about this remote small island and how people lived on there.

And there were parts of this book that I enjoyed a lot. I liked getting to know all about the peculiar children and their home. How they were living. Learning about the time loop. I found all of that to be so interesting. And I liked getting to know more about the monsters in this world too, as they were pretty exciting. These peculiar children are hidden away from the world, to keep them all safe. Because regular humans would probably hurt them. And the monsters that would kill them. It was interesting getting to know everything.

But I must mention a few things that I did not like. Mainly, the romance. Jacob meets a girl. A girl around his age. Yet she has lived for over eighty years. And she used to be together with his grandfather, many many years ago. I found that to be a bit too much, maybe. Especially because this girl is still in love with his grandfather. Has been obsessed with him for years, ever since he left. Yet when Jacob arrives, she seems to fall for him right away. And it grossed me out, to be honest. And that was pretty disappointing.

Especially with how very badly done the kissing scenes were. Yeah, I get that this is a boy point of view, but kissing scenes can still be written good. These were not. At all. And that was disappointing too. I'm wishing it will approve in the next books, though. As there were times when I found the point of view of Jacob to be pretty awkward. Ah. Still. Was not all bad. And I did like this story a lot. There are also some interesting and different and pretty pictures included in this. Old ones. And those were awesome to see.

Huge thank you to Penguin Random House International for letting me take part in this great read along for this series. I'm excited about giving the next books a try too, as I have not read them before. While this book was not perfect for me, I am glad I gave it a second chance. It was pretty interesting, and I did enjoy reading it most of the time. I do think that you should all give Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children a try as well. I am crossing all my fingers that I'll end up liking the next books a bunch more than this one.

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