Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs

This is somewhere between 3 and 4 out of 5 stars for me... But closer to 3 than to 4. Ultimately I enjoyed it, and I will pick up the next book soon. I am thoroughly looking forward to the movie though! I mean, Tim Burton!!!! Yes please! Initially (actually for most of the book) I truly struggled to feel any sort of empathy or affinity to the main character - Jacob. He is the very epitome of spoilt brat. A poor little rich boy whose parents adore him has a wonderful upbringing and yet is constantly whining and wallowing in his own self pity. What's to feel sorry for? In truth I didn't find any of the characters particularly complex or well developed so there just wasn't much to latch on to to be taken away in this world Riggs has created. The plot dragged here and there and went into some pretty strange places. I did love the pictures but I'm also conflicted on this as I felt that a whole bunch of them could have easily been omitted - it was more of a case of 'how can I put this picture into the story' as opposed to the richly created world I was expecting of this hyped up book. It was a wonderful idea, poorly executed. Essentially, I'm going to read the next one, if only to find out what happens to all the ymbrynes. The ending was a slight twist on what I was expecting, but I mean, I'm not expecting the world to actually be blown up here.