Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs)
I grew up on Goosebumps and Agatha Christie. I thought the house next door- an abandoned, boarded up, dilapidated old death trap- was haunted (in my defense, my father and brother colluded to encourage this belief) so if I had been shown a world where Miss Peregrine's Home existed, I don't know that I ever would have left it.

And I call it a world because that is exactly what it is. Riggs creates an incredible realm with rules and mythos to learn and live by. Not only does he teach us the ways of the Peculiars, he shows them to us. As a person obsessed with abandoned buildings, abandoned photos, and basically all human things abandoned, this just settled a place in my heart for this book.

According to Riggs, these photos were actually the inspiration for the book. He has a hobby of collecting old photos at flea markets and yard sales, the kind that no one knows who the subject is, or where it was taken. No idea how they even came to own them, but here they are anyway. And then, Riggs creates a story for these orphaned photos. As he did that, he began to weave them together, allowing the children in the photos to meet, to share a life, to have fun and games and stories and nightmares and hold hands and love and hate and become a true memory instead of a forgotten one.

On top of being in love with this book, I am also in love with the movie. If anyone was going to be able to bring to life this story, it was Tim Burton (a-la Big Fish). And oh, what a job he did!  Obviously, read the book first, then watch the movie.  (I, unfortunately, got impatient waiting for the price of the e-book to come down and ended up watching the movie first, but I don't feel like anything was lost for it except for my stringent rule to read the book first.)

I adore this book. I am in love with this book. This book is one of the top five that I would slip inside if I could. I think, truly, that any of us who felt "off", or out of sync with our peers growing up would have loved the idea of a place where what made you odd made you perfect.

Where any of us could help save the day with our own special Peculiarity.

My honest opinion:
The Book
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Writing
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

Readability
🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️

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