Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Random Riggs

Navid Tajkhorshid

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is a story about the effects and consequences of a group of remarkable, or peculiar, people on the rest of the world. It follows 16-year-old Jacob Portman, in his journey to understand his grandfather’s mysterious death, leading him do discover some more uncomfortable and terrifying truths that he may not want to know. I would recommend this story to anyone looking for a light read, but I do believe it has some pacing and tonal issues, specifically in the beginning and middle chapters of the book.

​The story starts with a prologue of Jacob’s grandfather telling him stories about a special home he was at during the second world war. He had many pictures of children and teenagers doing seemingly impossible things, such as levitating. His grandfather had also mentioned monsters that he fought in the war, and when Jacob grew up, he simply assumed that the monsters were Nazis and the magical children were tales to entertain him as a kid. However, when Jacob’s grandfather starts to become seemingly delusional, he tries to convince Jacob of these stories again. Jacob dies not believe him until when his grandfather dies to one of these monsters in the forest, which only Jacob was able to catch sight of. The only clues Jacob has as to what these monsters are are a few cryptic messages his grandfather had left for him. These messages eventually lead him to a low population remote island far off the coast of the U.K. On this island, Jacob discovers a secret society of gifted, or peculiar, children who have unique powers, the children that his grandfather would tell him stories about. He starts to befriend some of these children, and almost gets entirely accepted into their society, after a less than warm welcome.

​Jacob as a character is likable as a main protagonist. He can be blunt, but is considerate, is not very social, but polite, and can be unknowingly rude, but strives to be respectful. His characterization, apart from the first three chapters, is consistent. It is possible to get to know him entirely from his narration alone, since there is a much more distinct voice in this novel than many others that I have read. I can easily see myself in Jacob, which is not to say that we are similar, but that his decisions and flaws are very human. Over the story, he evolves to become a more well-rounded person, mostly in terms of his ability to socialize. Through his interactions with the peculiar children, he learns what is feels like to be in a family, as his real family is nearly always busy.

​However, I do believe that there is some tonal dissonance between the first few chapters and the rest of the book. Jacob seems very different than he does in the other chapters. He seems extremely nonchalant and rude. This could be interpretedas a starting point for character development, but unlike in the later chapters, where Jacob slowly becomes more social and caring, this change happens as soon as he gets to the island. This makes the reader’s first impressions of him very different than the character they will spend time with for most of the book.

​The novel is also filled with exposition throughout this entire story. New facts about peculiar children come up all the time. For example, Jacob learns what the monsters are just before the final three chapters. This is not a huge problem, as the book is the start of a series, but the exposition is so closely related to the plot of the book that it can become annoying to try to understand the story until the end. This is not a huge problem, especially snce this book is the start of a series, but it was off-putting at times to hear another lecture from a the mentor character about the one other thing that they decided to withhold from Jacob.

​Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a simple book passively, but it can be hard to try to read too much into the story, as there is not much hidden between the lines.