The very first time I saw the first edition copy of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, I thought I was in for a written version of The Conjuring.
The book oozes a mysterious, scary ambiance that invites readers inside the doors of one unusual orphanage where children — queer, different, uncanny — lived in harmony whilst embracing their respective eccentricities.
This concept is not new for it brings to mind how Professor X built a home for those who are lost, scared and unsure of what to do with their mutant talents. X-Men came to mind when, in the later chapters of this book, Mr. Riggs introduced, in a painstakingly slow place, the house, the black bird and the children.
I finished the book in one day. The copy I got was bought at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. It featured a new cover highlighting the characters in the movie version. It was a good, slow read but not the kind that sent me off to another world of make believe. It didn’t have the Harry Potter impact although I felt a Diagon Alley-ish attempt to be that way.
I am still confused whether to love or unlike (not entirely hate) this book.
The reasons being…
1. The story seemed to be a hard attempt to create a hybrid version of X-men meet the world of Harry Potter.
So… little boy discovered that Grandpa’s story might be real so his depressed self encouraged his parents to let him go and explore. His exploration led him to this uninhabited house where he found pictures. I have to give it to the author though for creatively combining those photos with the story’s plot. But I feel there was a problem between the attempt to use these photos in creating X-men characters living in the world of Harry Potter.
2. Yes, the photographs were creatively used but it felt like they were overly hyped.
Blame this to the movie I guess. I read the book but haven’t watched the movie (I will probably do that later this week) because I wanted to see for myself how events unfolded in the book and then compare how the movie uplifted or killed the book. I will know about that later… for those of you who have read the book and seen the movie, what can you say?
3. The slow pace of this novel’s narrative is both a boon and a bane.
Mr. Riggs introduced a complicated world which involved time warps, a rich unhappy kid who idolized his grandfather, a secluded island, a negative force that reminded of J.K. Rowling’s Death Eaters. The novel’s slow pace invited readers to read slower so you have a clearer, more detailed picture of the characters, the events, the circumstances. But… the same slow pace brought a challenge to the overall impact of the novel. It felt dragging and the story too stretched out to accommodate certain events and characters. The last two chapters became boring and by the middle of the second to the last chapter, I wanted to nudge Mr. Riggs and tell him to end the story already.
This novel was released in 2011 and it took three years before the second book, Hollow City, came out for the public to devour. In 2015, Library of Souls was released completing the three-book series.
Am I going to buy the two books?
Yes, I will.
Because while I don’t like the pace and the oversell that came with the movie adaptation, Mr. Riggs did make some intriguing points and I found myself attached to Miss Peregrine and the Peculiar Children.
