Miss Peregrine’s
Home For Peculiar Children
Overall Rating: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★
Plot: ★★★★.5
Writing：★★★★
Many book-to-movie adaptations will come
out this year, and this book will be one of them. I have heard millions of buzz
about this book on both Goodreads and the Booktube community. Surely, my
interest has been aroused, but the ultimate inspiration for me to pick up this
book is the movie trailer, just like what happens to the book Me Before You. By the way, the trailer
is fantastic. If the actual movie can reach as high quality as that of the trailer,
then I will be extremely excited for this movie adaptation. To me, there is no
better director that Tim Burton whose style fits perfectly with the peculiar
and quirky feelings of this novel. To be honest, I don’t have a high
expectation for this book before reading it. However, I do discover some kind
of pleasure throughout my reading experience.
First of all, let me try to summarize the
plot of this book. Jacob has grown up with his grandfather’s weird stories
filled with fantastical experience and old pictures of some peculiar children.
As he grows up, he no longer believes his grandfather’s tales, until one night
his grandfather is killed by a monster. After suffering from continuous
ceaseless nightmares, Jacob is resolved to set out a journey to an island where
his grandfather has directed him to go to. On that island, Jacob discovered
something very peculiar and even dark. Those unusual children in the antique
pictures of Jacob’s grandfather may still be alive.
Actually, I have seen the Chinese version
of this book, though I just saw the front cover. The Chinese title is called “怪屋女孩”, and
if you translate it back to English, it will be “a girl in a weird
house”. You
will soon realize the fact that this title is quite misleading as long as you
have actually read the book. Because of this Chinese title, I had fault
expectations about what I am going to encounter in this book. I expect to see
some kind of ghost story or some haunted house in an isolated island.
Apparently, none of those imageries are true.
I give the characters three stars because I
cannot like the protagonist Jacob at the first place. At the beginning, he
appears to be quite hysterical and even a little mad. I understand his
circumstances and all the hard things he has been through, but I still cannot
like him as a character, though I feel much better about him as the story
progresses. He is brave and smart, and these qualities of him are revealed at
the climax of this book. I also like other peculiar children; they are very
funny and interesting.
Although the first half of the book drags a
little bit, the second half is definitely amazing. The plot twist is shocking,
and I didn’t see it coming at all. The second half is action packed and
exciting. Some of the scenes are quite nervous, and I gradually realize why
this book is such a famous thing in the past few years. I thoroughly enjoy the
plot, and I am looking forward to reading the next book.
Frankly, I have spent almost half a month
on reading this book. During this time period, I was stressed out with the SAT
test, and I was sort of in a reading slump. However, after marathoning through
this book, I feel my love for reading appears again. I won’t read the second
book right after I finish the first book, so I decide to pick up some stand-alone
before going back to the world of Jacob and his peculiar friends. I definitely
recommend this book. It didn’t blow my mind, but it does have numerous
unexpected plot twists that amaze me a lot.
