An entertaining story with likeable characters and creepy aspects. The photographs were a really nice addition. I knew what to expect from this book and don't get how some are mislead to believe this is shelved as horror. It is not. I would've liked the antagonists to be more dark and plain evil but the monsters fit the targeted audience. The pace is nice, I've read in on a single rainy day. Only thing that bothered me was the one dimensional relatioship between Jakob and his father. I found it immensely important for the character development of Jake, that his father accompanied him but from the arrival on the island their exchanges begin to feel forced and unbelievable. A pity. It made the parting scene feel like bad writing, a mere attempt to wrap things up with the single loose end, being his dad, keeping him tied to the present time. I'm looking forward to the movie but I get the feeling Tim Burton put slightly too many efforts into it.

The idea and beginning were great but it just got really boring and dull towards the end, which is sad. I liked how at the beginning it was dealt much with perspective of events (his grandfather telling the story about peculiar children and the monsters VS the version everyone else believed to be true: children being peculiar because they escaped the war and the nazis). I wished the book would've focused more on this aspect.... Because than you could like question what is the real and what is just a coping mechanism But the end, with all the action, just was extremely boring Also the love side plot was extremely weird and didn't add anything to the story... One time they were in the middle of an action scene but kissed each other in the rain... It was just so weird. The other weird part was that she literally had a relationship with his grandfather??!

What I think about it: At first: I loved the vintage photos and the formal style of the book as a whole. There is something appealling about the cover which makes you want to start reading immediately ;) Also there's the name of the "Bird" - Alma LeFay Peregrine - embossed to the book cover, which is another sign for me that shows how lavishly this book was made. So the pictures are the main part of it. The story was woven around them and the author did a good job, but I had the feeling it couldn't reach the creepiness, the exotic feeling or the expressiveness of the photographies. They are all just weird and wonderful :) The idea of the story is good though, and it's thrilling and all, but sometimes I wanted to shout at Jacob ;) The story line was predictable from time to time and Jacob was just so slow when it came to understanding hints from other people. Last but not least I liked the ambience of the book. Walking through the storm and rain on this little island, the abandoned orphanage and the atmosphere of the 1940s. Added to all that there's the peculiar children which make the reading experience dark and creepy enough without having the spine-chill as the main theme of the story. So all things considered, it was a nice read, different from other books, and I enjoyed most to flip through the pages taking a closer look at the vintage pictures. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and books for teens. And if you want to have some information about the backgrounds: Video no. 1: Talking Pictures Video no. 2: A Most Peculiar Trip: Searching for Miss Peregrine Both videos are made by Ransom Riggs. He talks about his love of vintage photographs and his journey through Europe to find the right place for his fictional orphanage.

I just finished "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" and if I could I'd give it 3.5 stars instead of only 3. It was an interesting read, not at all what I'd expected it to be, and it held a good amount of twists I wasn't expecting either. I liked the way the story was built but I didn't like much how the book ended. I have to say I don't care much for that open ends with books. It gives me the feeling like nothing is resolved, really. Since there will be a sequel, apparently, you could say the book ends with a so-called cliffhanger. The characters were interesting, but I think you could have gone deeper, work out their real characteristics a little better. Having finished "Miss Peregrine's" I still don't have the feeling like I KNOW much about Jacob and Emma and the rest of them. There's going to be a second book and I'll definitely read it because I do want to know how the story will end and how the characters will develop. All in all, I think it's a good first book :)

I watched the movie before I read the book. So I was a bit confused by that swap of powers between two of the characters. But besides that it was very similar to the movie or well the movie to the book. Up till the point where they have to leave. I loved the book and the movie. Not one to say that often. It is just so Interesting to see all these powers at work and the life they have to lead in order to survive. This is one good and fascinating story for sure.

Took me sooo long to get through, and it really weren't that many pages, especially there are so many pictures in it. The story gradually develops in a positive way. To be exact, I really started liking it when our peculiar children were introduced. I enjoyed following the, their special talents and Jacob getting to know them. This novel wasn't what I expected but overall very enjoyable. I do hope though that the second novel will excite me more so it won't take me ages again to get through it.

Anfang und Ende des Buches würde ich 4 Sterne geben. Der mittlere Teil hat sich doch etwas gezogen. Deswegen im Gesamten eher eine 3,5 statt 4. Es hat Freude gemacht zu lesen und darauf kommt es an. Die Integration der alten Fotografien lies die Welt von Ransom Riggs wirklicher erscheinen.

CONTENT Some grandparents tell their grandchildren fairytales. But not Jacob Portman's grandpa. He tells his grandson of a far away island, where he once used to live as a child. He tells him of the other children that lived with him and shows him strange pictures of them. A flying girl, an invisible boy, a girl with a fireball in her hand, a skinny boy who lifts a heavy stone. Jacob grows up and stops believing in these stories... until his grandfather dies a death that shocks Jacob forever and he cannot shake the nightmares anymore. He discoveres more and more about the fantasy stories his granddad used to tell him.. until he has the change to travel himself to the island. And what he discovers there will change his life forever.. MIGHT THIS BOOK BE TOO SCARY FOR YOU? I think many of you have seen the book in their bookstores but have refused to buy it because they thought it would be too scary for them since the cover looks quite creepy. But let me tell you: IT IS NOT. Yes, there are lots of weird and strange pictures in it, but besides that it is definitely not too scary. In fact, it had the perfect amount of weirdness for this time of year. I wanted to read something spookier so close to Halloween but didn't wanted nightmares or be scared to death by it. And I definitely wasn't. The pictures are really the only "scary" stuff in there, and they are also not too extreme. MY OPINION ON THE BOOK WHAT I LIKED I really enjoyed it. :) I loved that the book feels much more "expensive" than other English books I've read so far. The pages are all very thick and pale and the cover protects the spine very well. So it was really great to hold the book while reading.. something that is very important for me. I adored the way the book woved in the pictures into the story. It made the book so much more peculiar itself and I was often a bit scared to turn the page and see the previously described picture for myself. The pictures gave the story way more of a spooky vibe. The bookcover and the pictures are all in black and white, which created an even darker setting for the story. (Still! It isn't actually scary at all, but I liked how it created the feeling that it definitely could be.) I liked the protagonist and I could very much feel for him because the book took the time to really show his problematic state and the reasons therefore at the beginning of the book. I found it very appealing that the overall main relationship was that of a grandson and his grandfather to be very lovely. I haven't read many books that focused on that so far. The peculiar children were brilliant. I really want to read the two sequels as well, just to get to know them even better. Some of them were still quite opaque but others really showed some depth to their character. I also enjoyed reading the dynamics between the protagonist Jacob and the peculiar girl Emma. I found Emma to be quite a strong female character. It's a pretty quick read as soon as one has come over the "What's going on here?" feeling of the first pages. I really loved coming back to the book whenever I continued reading it. It definitely shows the reader a world where you can sink deeply into. In my version of the book there was a Q&A with the author and some more unused peculiar photographs in the appendix, which I quite enjoyed. But what really creeped me out.. actually more than the whole story before.. was that the author stated that all the photographs were actually real. I was just staring at that sentence for a while and felt a shiver coming over me. While I was reading the book I always looked at the pictures and thought about how they edited that...but reading that they were in fact real was really scary. WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE The monsteres. I wasn't too sure what to think about these. They seemed a bit too fantastical for me. They took some of the spookiness away from the story. Becuse the children had all this creepy vibe around them since one could see them on the photographs in the book. But the monsters just seemed completely fictional. And also the way they were described to look.. was just something that I am not very into. The chapters were quite long. I often sit down to read "til the next chapter", which were quite some pages in this book. That always leads to me reading slower than I would if the chapters were shorter. But like I said, I still found it to be a pretty quick read. The abrupt ending. I was sitting there, enjoying my read,.. when I turned the page, and the appendix started. That took me completely by surprise. :D I mean it obviously leads to immediately wanting to buy the sequel, but still.. it came a bit sudden. CAN I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO YOU? Yes! I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend you to read it now, in Autumn, so close to Halloween! It was really the perfect book to read in this time for me, because it had that creepy vibe about it but wasn't actually that scary at all. MY RATING IN STARS I award this book with 4 out of 5 stars. ****/*****

3,5 stars Florida, Jetztzeit. Der siebzehnjährige Jacob hatte immer schon ein besseres Verhältnis zu seinem Großvater als sein Vater. Darum kümmert er sich auch mehr um Großvater Abe, der in letzter Zeit einige Altersmacken entwickelt hat. Schon immer hat er Jacob Schwarzweißfotos von seltsamen Kindern gezeigt, und zwar aus der Zeit, als Abe als jüdischer Flüchtling im Teenageralter während des zweiten Weltkrieges in einem Kinderheim auf einer Insel in Wales lebte. Als Kind hielt Jacob diese Fotos für echt, mittlerweile ist er sich sicher, dass es sich um Fälschungen handelt. Doch dann wird der Großvater überfallen, spricht von einem Monster – und Jacob sieht dieses Monster nach dem Überfall im Garten seines Großvaters mit eigenen Augen. Vor seinem Tod gibt der Großvater Jacob noch scheinbar verschlüsselte Aufgaben – und er soll sich auf die Insel der besonderen Kinder begeben, dort sei er sicher. Ransom Riggs’ Romandebüt macht schon rein optisch was her, mit der merkwürdigen Schwarzweißfotografie eines schwebenden Mädchens auf dem Cover. Dies setzt sich im Buch selber mit zahlreichen stimmungsvollen Fotografien fort, die tatsächlich auch die Grundlage des Romans bildeten: Ransom Riggs hat seine Geschichte anhand dieser Bilder entwickelt. Auch die Idee ist originell: Kinder mit besonderen Begabungen, die fernab der Gesellschaft leben und die auch besonderen Gefahren ausgesetzt sind. In Kombination mit Zeitreisen und düsteren Gestalten ein vielversprechendes Rezept für einen Jugendroman. Die Geschichte liest sich flüssig – trotz der vielen Fotos, die keineswegs stören, sondern für die richtige Atmosphäre sorgen. Auch für genügend Spannung ist gesorgt, sodass das Buch zu einem echten Pageturner wird. Erzählerisch offenbart Ransom Riggs jedoch ein paar Schwächen, mir sind während der Lektüre einige Logiklücken aufgefallen, die auch im weitere Verlauf des Buchs nicht erklärt werden. Schon allein, dass Jacob weder vor seiner Reise zur Insel noch nach der Ankunft dort nach den Bewohnern des gesuchten Hauses fragt, sondern nur nach dem Haus selbst, scheint unglaubwürdig. Und alle Häuser dort haben Satellitenschüsseln, aber kein Telefon, obwohl eine Leitung existiert (zum Pub), ernsthaft? Das sind zwei Beispiele, mehrere möchte ich aufgrund von Spoilergefahr nicht nennen. Eine kleine Romanze ist natürlich unvermeidlich, wobei ich wirklich der Meinung bin, man hätte in diesem Buch darauf verzichten können. Schön ist auch noch, dass Riggs einige interessante Motive einbringt, etwa das Konzept des “vererbten Kriegstraumas” und den Meteoritenabsturz von Tunguska. Der ganze Showdown zum Ende hin ist mir etwas zu sehr auf die Fortsetzung ausgelegt und vermittelt ein leichtes Gefühl von “Unfertigkeit”, damit hätte Ransom Riggs besser umgehen können. Alles in allem ein schöner, spannender, aber nicht großartiger Jugendroman. Auf die Verfilmung durch Tim Burton dürfen wir gespannt sein.

I was taken completely by surprise by this novel. I had wanted to read it for a while but never really got around to buy and read it. So now that I have read I feel like I treasure this book in a, well, peculiar way! I feel the characters like no others before, like they are a real part of my life and that this is a world I want to discover. This is an incredible book with such and interesting and new story. The pictures are fantastic and unique things here that make the reader, in my way of seeing it, all the more invested in the story and characters. The plot is unique and peculiar and simply beautiful. I loved it! I can't wait to get my hands and the next volume.