A review by taelights
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.5
This book honesty really captured my attention the whole time and I found the plot to be very interesting. The concept was unique and I didn't want to put it down at any point. It wasn't a scary book as it's sold to be but that isn't a big deal to me plus I did find a few elements to be a bit unsettling still which I enjoyed. The last few chapters of the book especially were very exciting and fun to read.
I only have two problems with the book:
1) I did not connect to the main character at all. Jacob was boring in my opinion and I didn't care about him. He could have died and I would have been like lol okay.
2. The romance.... Honestly the story really could have done without romance at all first of all. It felt out of place and literally added nothing to the book, it felt shoehorned in with literally no build up as if it was just there to check off the romance box for YA novels.
Plus the romance itself was disgusting. Jacob is 16 years old and Emma while in a 16 year old body is still 88 so that's just gross to me to begin with. I'm a huge fan of things like vampire x human romances that have a similar vibe of someone older in a younger body but like... only when the human is of legal age. While Emma is not a vampire the same thing still applies. If Jacob was 18 or older I would be more comfortable with it maybe but the age difference was very gross as is.
Plus even more disgusting was the fact that Emma dated Jacob's grandfather.... yikes. It's just wrong from both Jacob and Emma's point of view... If you had to have Jacob date anyone to begin with (which again you didn't because romance felt so out of place in this book), why did it have to be Jacob's dead grandfather's ex girlfriend??? It was just a disgusting and uncomfortable mess of a romance on all levels.
I only have two problems with the book:
1) I did not connect to the main character at all. Jacob was boring in my opinion and I didn't care about him. He could have died and I would have been like lol okay.
Spoiler
Even his praculiarity was boring especially compared to the powers the other characters have.2. The romance.... Honestly the story really could have done without romance at all first of all. It felt out of place and literally added nothing to the book, it felt shoehorned in with literally no build up as if it was just there to check off the romance box for YA novels.
Plus the romance itself was disgusting. Jacob is 16 years old and Emma while in a 16 year old body is still 88 so that's just gross to me to begin with. I'm a huge fan of things like vampire x human romances that have a similar vibe of someone older in a younger body but like... only when the human is of legal age. While Emma is not a vampire the same thing still applies. If Jacob was 18 or older I would be more comfortable with it maybe but the age difference was very gross as is.
Plus even more disgusting was the fact that Emma dated Jacob's grandfather.... yikes. It's just wrong from both Jacob and Emma's point of view... If you had to have Jacob date anyone to begin with (which again you didn't because romance felt so out of place in this book), why did it have to be Jacob's dead grandfather's ex girlfriend??? It was just a disgusting and uncomfortable mess of a romance on all levels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, and Death
Minor: Ableism