Synopsis: A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of curious photographs.
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 were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.
So, full disclosure, I watched the movie first. I wasn’t entirely sure about it and the movie seemed like less effort. Less immersion. I did get kind of into it by the end and wanted to see what happened next, so I picked up the first book.
I feel like I got the better deal going from movie to book rather than the other way around. It was a policy I implemented a while back and then completely forgot about so this was a nice surprise, this rare feeling of satisfaction. Usually it’s just the opposite. Not to mention the synopsis is well written. I know I bang on about them so that’s all I’m going to say.
One thing that’s suffered without the obsessive reading of the book is the ability to pick out the differences from memory, which I usually do as a matter of course, comparing the two and trying to determine if one is better than the other in terms of how they affect the narrative. It’s definitely a grander story-line in the film, with spectacle being the focus and clever twists being the aim. The book I felt showed Jacob in a better light in terms of the complexities of his character, the film glossing over much in order to keep the film shorter and focusing on a few qualities, some of which are told rather than shown.
The book itself I enjoyed. It was more original than I had hoped. Often the choice to convert something into a big-budget picture is more from the book having wide appeal than a high quality of content. Thankfully this has both with the quality above average and the wide appeal stemming from an array of diverse characters that don’t get as explored as well as I might wish in this first book. I look forward to the next two. Though I am a little concerned as the movie continued after the end of the first book. Not quite sure what to make of that.
Limitations. It is a shorter book than I began to hope when I got to about halfway through. As I mentioned earlier, I would have enjoyed further time with each of the peculiar children to get to know them, though am not overly concerned with two books still for me to read, and a prequel novella full of tales of the peculiar children. The children mention their ages in passing, physical as opposed to actual real-world experience of time passing. I hadn’t thought about it until then but I think I will be reading this book again with that fact firmly in mind, trying to determine how it affects the characters’ actions. Ransom Riggs skates over the topic, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. It is my fervent hope it is explored more in the further novels.
Yes. If you’re a fan of this genre.
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