Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

25 reviews

micaelamariem's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I’m not really sure why, but this book really didn’t grab my attention. The premise was good but I think the writing fell flat. While using the pictures was a great way to do something different, it was a stretch and felt too forced sometimes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Grief, Violence, and War

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I tried to pick up a copy of this one as a graphic novel, as it was listed as on the shelves (at Christchurch South Library), but an unhelpful librarian refuse to help me track it down after I had flipped through everything on the shelves and come up wanting.. so I threw up my arms in agitation and just downloaded the audiobook. It was probably a wise decision in the long run.

The story focuses on a teen who is brought up in Florida and who has a close relationship with his Jewish grandfather who survived WWII. The man tells him fanciful stories and and shows him photographs of a children's home where he was raised with kids with special powers. The photographs look fake and a bit dodgy, so nobody believes his stories of special powers and monsters, assuming that they are the mentally divergent accommodations of a traumatised holocaust survivor. As the old man gets increasingly paranoid and the family are considering putting him in a care facility, his grandson goes to check on him, only to find that one of the monsters has got him.

Once his therapist okays the trip, he follows a set of clues in his grandfather's last words, and he travels with his father to a remote island in the UK where his father wishes to observe the local birdlife. There he puts together a puzzle that brings him into contact with people his grandfather once knew, and entangles him in further adventure.

Being set in Florida I notice that there is quite a bit of narrative about the treatment of the elderly. There is a focus on listening to the opinions of older people, and the ways that they are treated in society (there are a lot of rest homes and retirees in Florida, so this follows). I also encountered the term "lenai" for the first time. Intuiting that it was a type of verandah, I looked it up and realised that this common feature of houses in tropical climes was not unknown to me.. my Uncle has one similar to the pictures that I see in an internet web-search, and he lives in Australia.

The story is interesting, deals with alternate timelines and portals, and has a little bit of teen kissing, secret monsters, shape changers,  levitating and snorkelling, and some stuff with common or garden necromancy, scary monsters, and sheep poo. This is the first part of a bigger story so it's not surprising that the end of it is a bit of a cliffhanger. I'd like to know what  happens next.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, and Gore

Minor: Kidnapping

vanesst's review

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, and Murder

Moderate: Excrement, Child death, Grief, Gun violence, War, Alcohol, Antisemitism, and Blood

hayleythegoose's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Animal death, War, Murder, and Stalking

Moderate: Grief, Antisemitism, and Child death

Minor: Child abuse and Bullying

spookily's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death of parent, Death, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Murder

Moderate: War, Grief, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Genocide

Minor: Abandonment, Child death, Drug use, Medical content, and Infidelity

koberreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Review: One of the best fiction books regarding how our individuality, even though might be a curse or something to fear by other people, is also something they are compelled by, even if they don't admit it. 

 

We should focus more on how wonderful and interesting our differences are rather than derive hate and fear from them. 

 

It is also a story about the eternal need in all of us, no matter how small to live forever, in paradise, even at times we would wish we are gods as well and are unaffected by death. But death is a part of life, not the opposite of it even time loops that seem to escape or make death invalid, from the very words of Ms. Peregine herself, only delay it. 

 

Death gives life meaning. Therefore removing, death will truly make life meaningless or if not, maybe we become monsters in our desire to live like death is not part of life, like the hollowgast and wights. Maybe not physically a monster but just internally slowly. 

 

Read the whole series, you won't regret it. It is for all ages. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Death, and War

insanebookperson's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Gun violence, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and War

fe_aye's review against another edition

emotional mysterious relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Finally after promising myself I would pick up this book series for years, I did it. I do not regret it. This book surprised me in many ways and the pictures were one such surprise but I l thoroughly enjoyed this book. If your a fan of magic stories then I would recommend this. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Grief, Confinement, and Cannibalism

Minor: Cursing, Death, Mental illness, War, Animal death, Blood, and Bullying

yrlaevelyn's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence, War, Death, Child death, Animal death, Blood, and Animal cruelty

nutmegandpumpkin's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.75

I tried to read this book a long time ago and never finished it. When I saw a CD audio set of it at a garage sale for only 50 cents, I thought I’d try again and I am SO GLAD I did! If you have trouble reading the book, I’d definitely recommend giving the audiobook a go before giving up.

I absolutely loved the witty writing and narrator of this book. The atmosphere was the perfect mix of spooky and whimsical. The plot was so intriguing and I’m always a sucker for a group of kids with special abilities. 

Note: although listed as a “horror” book I wouldn’t call it that and think it might give people the wrong expectations. The horror is more so a spooky undertone to the main whimsical and strange fantasy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Grief, Murder, Kidnapping, Death, Gaslighting, and War

Minor: Child death

the animal death is pretty explicit but it’s only really one scene and easily skippable