From the Bookshelf of ~Can't Stop Reading~…

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1)

Ransom Riggs

Start date: October 1, 2012

Finish date: October 31, 2012

Discussion: Current Group Reads

Why we're reading this: Voted for by you for our October group read!
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Current Group Reads

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What Members Thought

Jan 24, 2013 Julesmarie rated it liked it

Shelves: action-crime-mystery, young-adult, fantasy, horror, historical-fiction

Okay, so when I first discovered this book my reaction was "Awesome! Gothic-y-Horror with cool vintage photos!" And then I came here and read some reviews. And this ended up firmly on um... no shelf in my head. Then the other day a friend of mine asked if I'd read it yet, and when I said no, she told me how much she'd like it.

Deciding to trust her opinion over those of strangers (sorry, strangers), I gave the book a go. And perhaps it was because I didn't have high expectations thanks to the neg Okay, so when I first discovered this book my reaction was "Awesome! Gothic-y-Horror with cool vintage photos!" And then I came here and read some reviews. And this ended up firmly on um... no shelf in my head. Then the other day a friend of mine asked if I'd read it yet, and when I said no, she told me how much she'd like it.

Deciding to trust her opinion over those of strangers (sorry, strangers), I gave the book a go. And perhaps it was because I didn't have high expectations thanks to the negative reviews I'd read, or perhaps I was just in the mood for this type of Harry Potter-meets-X-Men, but set in the 40's story. Whatever the reason, I did like it.

Yes, Jacob was a whiny, over-privileged, ungrateful spoiled child. Who did indeed act much more like he was 10 than 16. But I don't know that exploring the house and the world in the loop would have been as enjoyable with a more pleasant narrator.

(view spoiler)

However, I also thought that Jacob did show admirable growth by the end of the story when he finally started making decisions on his own.

And I thought the idea of the loops and the time traveling was fun, I just wish it might have been explored more thoroughly here and not introduced merely as a teaser for the next in the series.

I do have to down rate this a little because it's turning out to be just the first book in a series. I'm not sure I'm up for more.

Some Favorite Quotes

We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing them becomes too high.

The cooperation part was an unofficial brains-for-brawn trade agreement we'd worked out in which I helped him not fail English and he helped me not get killed by the roided-out sociopaths who prowled the halls of our school.

To have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of that the honorable and good and brave person I knew him to be--that was magical.

"I knew there was something peculiar about you," she said. "And I mean that as the highest compliment."

"We'll figure something out," she replied.
"Millard sighed. "Oh, lovely. Improvised suicide." ...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Rhonda rated it liked it

I read this book in about a day and a half. Not because it was a book I wasn't able to put down but I was sick and wanted to read. I kept waiting for the creepy part the the book let you to believe it would go but that never really happened. Cute story...a little odd...definitely not like anything I had read in a while. It had a lot of potential but just didn't quite live up to what thought it could be. ...more

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