Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

What I Liked:
Once again, I am sitting here laughing at the difference between actuality and expectation. For a book that’s highly hyped, I had no idea what Miss Peregrine’s was about. Based on the cover, I was expecting a horror novel about a house full of creepy children who kill innocent travelers or something. Spoiler: this is not what the book is about in the least. In fact, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is something of a fairy tale, something of an allegory, and something real and powerful all at once.


Miss Peregrine’s opens in the real world with an ordinary boy, Jacob, and the stories his grandfather would tell them. With the innocence and imagination of youth, Jacob believed his grandather’s tales, but, as he grew, Jacob came to understand them as his grandfather’s metaphorical way of understanding the events of WWII. In an undertaking somewhat reminiscent of Art Spiegelmann’s Maus, Jacob’s grandfather retells the war in the guise of supernatural beings, rather than mice and cats. Such an endeavor makes the darkness and the fear easier to handle, putting some distance between oneself and the truth in a way that opens up the mind for greater understanding.

Following a family tragedy, Jacob is forced into counseling and finally sets off on a journey to Wales, accompanied by his father, working on the latest in a string of literary projects doomed to fail. In order to face his future and overcome his mental health issues, Jacob feels that he must confront his grandfather’s past. He wants to visit the home to which his grandfather went as a refugee, on a small island off the coast of Wales.

From this point on, the novel changes, becoming more fantastical, but always retaining a real sense of history and realism. One of my recent loves in fiction is magical realism, which Ransom Riggs does spectacularly here. Often, magical realism is the slightest touch, but, here, Riggs achieves that seem feel while building out a much larger fantasy element. There’s time traveling, wights, nightmare creatures, women who can change into birds, and children with powers. Somehow, though, it all feels so real, as though, hidden just beyond our site for their own protection, these people and abilities really do exist.

On top of that, the writing’s beautiful and complex. Though marketed more to young adults, Riggs’ novel is very Literary, with the capitalized L quite necessary. Miss Peregrine’s reminded me of so many things, but not in a repetitive or lazy way. It’s more like Riggs pulled elements together to form something new, while using popular stories to help achieve the proper tone and sense of familiarity that would play into the realism. For example, Riggs actually includes a couple of overt references to Peter Pan, which actually fits Miss Peregrine’s fairly well. A group of children in a land out of time fighting back a menace, and the child who comes from the normal world into this magical one. Of course, in Miss Peregrine’s, Jacob would be Wendy, which is good fun.

What Left Me Wanting More:
Though I didn’t feel much of an emotional connection, I didn’t mind that too much. In some ways, that freed me up to better appreciate the technical beauty of Riggs’ novel. I do, however, have one qualm, which is the weirdness of the romantic element.

The Final Verdict:
If you love beautifully-written stories or magical realism or dark fantastical tales, then you simply must read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. It is not, however, a horror novel or particularly fast-paced. This one’s for the mood, the world building, and deep thoughts.