Christy's Reviews > Tales of the Peculiar

Too impatient to order a copy and wait and too lazy to go to a physical store (the ones here are pitifully understocked anyway), I finally made use of the free Audible trial. I must say, I found whoever voiced Millard Nullings painfully contrived (almost Thomas the Tank Engine-like). The rich baritone of the main narrator also resulted in cringeworthy renditions of the young female characters' emotive dialogues, but he did enunciate the rest of the book quite beautifully.

As for the book itself, the stories were good, but most not remarkably so. I already mentioned The Girl Who Could Tame Nightmares in my status updates, and The Splendid Cannibals offered a unique and gripping spin on a fable against greed, but the rest simply provided relatively light (though not without grisly elements, as fables are wont to have) entertainment. Fans of the original series will be happy to find two tales first seen in Hollow City (The Tale of Cuthbert and The Pigeons of St Paul's), but as I had said, no prior experience of Ransom Riggs' bestselling novels is needed to enjoy this collection.