Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

The first novel by travel writer Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children lures readers in with an amazing collection of actual photos, which have been re-purposed to illustrate the novel.  Largely unchanged, their collectively spooky and sometimes disturbing nature sets the scene for what promises to be a haunting ride through Riggs' twisted imaginings.

The novel takes off running, with sixteen year-old Jacob detailing the fantastic stories his grandfather told him as a child, while they looked at photos he claimed were of people he knew during the time he spent at an orphanage during WWI;  Jacob bitterly decided as a boy that all he had believed of levitating children and terrifying monsters from the old man were actually tricks and deceptions.  Flash forward a few years to a frantic phone call, and a tragic discovery in the woods behind the grandfather's home leads to Jacob once again question reality; this time, events push him to realize that he must find the truth himself.  Within weeks, Jacob and his doddering father set off for a tiny island off the coast of the UK, the boy on a path to a place he could barely have dreamed.  It's no great revelation for readers that the home for peculiar children is real, due to the title of the story, but how and when he arrives there, and what dangers confront him, are truly fantastic.

Peregrine starts out strongly, and readers can make an almost instant connection to the emotionally raw Jacob.  The photos are utterly fascinating, and Riggs cleverly incorporates them into the tale immediately, virtually ensuring that the reader will be hooked into the mystery of who and what those portrayed really are.   Riggs has a gift for detail, and Jacob's eventual discovery of the remains of the home brings the smells and aura of the ruins to life.  Key relationships are another strong point of the novel, both between characters and reader-to-character; I genuinely was interested in each of the children, and more than that, was heartbroken for several characters.

However, once the entire truth begins to unfold, Riggs falters a bit in his storytelling.  It is almost as if, without the support of these wonderous photographic guides, he was unsure of where to go or how to keep the reader in the same trance.  Granted, it would be difficult to maintain the same level of grotesque fascination throughout, but the action doesn't quite stand up as well on its own, perhaps because the bar is set so high.  The climax of the story could have been taken from several children's action books, and is a little too easily resolved.  Additionally, readers expecting this to be horror fiction, as I initially was, should be aware that this is a fantasy.  Although the photos are somewhat disturbing (particularly the one of the twins on the back cover, which for some reason completely freaks me out), and may evoke thoughts of Pet Cemetary or any number of demonic toy films, they are not indicative of frightening characters, but rather of mere peculiarities posessed by largely good-natured children.

This is not to say that the bulk of the novel is without surprise or enticement, because that is not the case.  The peculiar children's predicament, and how each one chooses to deal with it (including Jacob's grandfather) is expertly and sensitively told, allowing for variation and uniqueness among the characters.  The eventual revelation of Jacob's grandfather's story, as well as Jacob's own legacy, is stirring and demands the reader to evaluate what, really, would he or she have done in the same situation?  What is bravery, and how do you deal with the monsters when they come for you?  While many of the basic parts of this story have been told before (secret path leads to time / dimension travel, fantastical creatures seeking dominion that must be faced by children, etc), it is the assembly and fleshing out of these conventions that is important, and Riggs does an excellent job of inking them into a new life. 

The ending of the novel makes it clear that this is intended to become a series, and I have already tried to find out the anticipated publication date for the next installment, but haven't had any luck as yet.  When it does come out, I will definitely be waiting to see whether Riggs can continue to keep the characters as strong as they have been, and whether he will continute to incorporate the photos he relied on so heavily to create the characters, or if he will branch out and rely solely on his own imagination in the next go-round.  This novel is appropriate for readers approximately age ten and up; if they're not scared by Harry Potter, and are no longer nervous about creatures under the bed, they will most likely love this story. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.  Excellent fantasy debut novel that transcends its YA label.