What I’m Reading: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

I am at an unfortunate stage in life where I am awkwardly placed in the world of literature. At 21 (almost 22) I feel like I am too old for the young adult novels with 15-year-old children finding their soul mates and too young for thirty-year-old divorcees getting a second chance at love. I just have a hard time emotionally connecting with these character types. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children came very highly recommended though by a lot of the blogs I follow, and I decided to give it a shot.

Jacob Portman loved his grandfather’s stories as a child. He listened to tales of an island where it was always sunny and children with peculiar abilities like being inhumanly strong or being able to levitate  He also heard stories of the monsters his grandfather chased and fought with tentacles coming from their mouths. As he grew older though he stopped believing his grandfather’s tales he believed them to be impossible until he gets a frantic call from his grandfather one day saying that the monsters are after him. After going to check on him, Jacob finds his grandfather dying in the woods and catches his first glimpse of one of the monsters his grandfather has always talked about. They’re real.

The police don’t believe Jacob. His parents don’t believe him. He is completely alone with his nightmares of the frightening creature he saw. Then he convinces his parents that he needs to visit the island where his grandfather went to school. He needs to see it for himself so that he can be sure once and for all that none of it was true. He goes with his father to Cairnholm and finds Miss Peregrine’s. With the decaying building, he also finds answers to all of his questions and a danger he never expected.

The strongest part of this book was the photographs. They were creepy and fantastic. I thought it was fascinating that all of the pictures were real too. They from the collections of people who hunt for strange old photos in bins and flea markets, which in itself is a very interesting hobby. I thought it started really well too. I was getting caught up in the story and was really anxious for Jacob to see Miss Peregrine’s and to find out more about his grandfather’s childhood. It just kind of fell flat for me at a certain point. The tension in the story dropped off kind of abruptly. There was this really good build up to Jacob getting to the house and finding out the truth about his grandfather, but then the story stopped moving and it was hard for me to get back into it. Exposition is necessary in every story, but I thought this one kind of got lost in the middle. I did finish it in like two days though, so I think that counts for something. All in all I give it 4 out of 7 stars. It’s better than average, but I wouldn’t go out and recommend it to all of my friends. I would suggest they pick it up at their local book store and flip through the pages to see the photographs though.

What I’m Reading: A Modern Day Persuasion

I am a sucker for anything and everything Jane Austen. I’m a sucker for anything even remotely Jane Austen related. Persuasion is my all time favorite book. I own like four copies, and I look forward to any opportunity to revisit all of my favorite characters. So, I really couldn’t help myself when I came across A Modern Day Persuasion. I just had to get it. The book is 256 pages, but I read it in probably 3 hours. I enjoyed it because I already love Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth. I’m a sucker for seeing them get a happy ending. It probably would not get a favorable review from me though if I didn’t already know and love the characters.

When Anne Elliot was 17, her 20-year-old boyfriend, Rick Wentworth, gave her an ultimatum. It was either marry him or go to college.  Anne did the smart, sensible and responsible thing and went to college. I approve of this decision. In this version of Jane Austen’s classic tale, Frederick Wentworth was not already in the navy. He was instead perfectly content with his job as a lifeguard at the local country club. He had no goals, no ambition. I don’t blame her for turning him down. I would have. Rick takes off for parts unknown, and Anne goes off to college and starts designing greeting cards.

Eight years later, Anne is 25 and home alone when her father is served papers saying that their home is going into foreclosure. This does not make a ton of sense since the reader is supposedly supposed to believe that the house is sort of an ancestral home. I have a hard time believing that it was still mortgaged multiple generations later. This could have been solved by Anne being surprised and not knowing that her father had mortgaged the house, but whatever. After her father and older sister return it is decided that they will sell the house and move to Martha’s Vineyard while Anne goes to stay with her younger sister Mary.

The novel pretty much follows Jane Austen’s classic here. I think some of the shining moments were with Anne’s two nephews, Charlie and Nicholas. Their ages were never specified, but they loved Star Wars, which was adorable for me. At one point Anne has them pretending that they are Obi Wan and Anakin. It was too cute. That was one of my favorite parts of the book.

All in all, I enjoyed it. I feel like the writer did a lot of editorializing sometimes. There were a lot of moments where it got really introspective and slowed the story down. It wasn’t the best written book I’ve ever read, but I did enjoy it. It definitely improved as the novel went on and the end was as satisfying as ever. I’ll give it 3.5 out of 7 stars. Persuasion fans will love it, but if you’re not already a big fan, I wouldn’t bother.