I love reading books, especially Young Adult books of all kinds. I have a book reviewing blog (The Reading Shelf) that I try to update whenever I'm not reading or procrastinating on the internet.
What a creepy and odd and delightful little book.
I knew this book had creepy pictures that were woven into the story, but that was about all that I knew before coming in. I didn’t know how the story would work or what exactly it was about, other than the peculiar children of Miss Peregrine’s Home. I mean, I read the summary, so I knew what that told me, but I still wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
From the beginning, though, I was interested. Jacob seemed like a real guy, which could be because the author is a boy, but I appreciated the fact that he didn’t seem over the top masculine or like a girl with an Adam’s apple. His grandfather was interesting and the stories of Miss Peregrine’s Home were interesting. As Jacob learns more about the stories and the real people behind them, I just got more and more interested in it.
What really made this story interesting were the pictures, of course. Some of them were fake-looking, some looked quite genuine, and some were downright disturbing. Seriously there are some creepy pictures in this book. But it’s a creepy book as well, so that’s not too surprising. I liked seeing how the pictures would fit into the story and learning more about the people beyond the picture.
The chapters were really long, so if you like lots of short chapters, you’re out of luck.
And, even though it intially doesn’t seem like it, this book does have a (slightly creepy, if you think about it – you’ll understand if you’ve read it) romance, so if you’re hoping to finally find a romance-free YA book, you’re out of luck again. There’s a huge cast of characters, to the point where I sometimes forgot who some of the secondary characters are, and some characters could do with a bit more fleshing out, but there are still plenty of interesting secondary characters.
I’m not quite sure why, but I just couldn’t give this book higher than four stars. It was entertaining and creepy and by the end I wanted to get my hands on the sequel (which doesn’t come out until next year – it takes a while to get creepy pictures, you know!), but it seemed like there was just something missing. It was entertaing, but it didn’t blow me away.