Reviews with content warning for Death - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

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Reviews tagging 'Death'

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

84 reviews

erebus53's review against another edition

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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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ehutton322's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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kibberbl's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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meecespieces's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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hayleythegoose's review against another edition

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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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allbookedupwithrosie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Lovely story of a boy on a journey to discover the truth behind his grandfathers tales.

After seeing the tale unfold before his eyes on one unfortunate night, Jacob starts to wonder if the tales his grandfather had told as a child were truly true.

Tag along alone on a adventure to the island where you will meet some very friendly peculiars and unravel a past that Jacob has never dreamed of knowing.

Thoroughly enjoyed the characters and their peculiarities. Reminded me muchly of Percy and the Olympians and the adventure of discovering who Jacob is.

Being honest, I saw the movie years ago and fell in love with seeing the characters come to life on the screen. The book however gave me a deeper understanding of the past and characteristics of the characters.

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