Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs | Audiobook Review

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MY THOUGHTS

I have heard a lot of great things about Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs so I was pretty psyched when I started listening to the audiobook.  Unfortunately, I was a little put off.  Miss Peregrine’s did not live up to my expectations.

Let’s talk about the genre.

First off, it was marketed as a scary middle-grade novel but it just wasn’t!  [spoiler]In fact, it felt more like X-Men First Class with all the children having mutant powers.[/spoiler] I honestly don’t have any issues for the way the plot went, but it was marketed as a spine-tingling fantasy.  With the creepy looking girl on the cover, to the creepy pictures included in the book, I thought this book would scare me a little.  But it didn’t.  Admittedly, I did not get the additional photos when I borrowed the audiobook but still.

Let’s talk about the characters.

The characters were a little interesting.  I wish there was more character development, though because I really wanted to know more about Miss Peregrine’s peculiar kids.  The title is about the peculiar kids, but I felt that there wasn’t enough focus on them.  However, I loved the bit when the kids showed off their sideshow act because it gave us a little taste of what their powers were.  I just wish there was more.

Let’s talk about world building.

I liked how the tiny island was described.  The world building did give the feeling of mysterious island slash abandoned island but without the creepiness.  In the author’s defense, he did try his best to make it sound creepy but it just didn’t cut it.

The [spoiler]travel between time was unexpected which was an awesome surprise.[/spoiler] I didn’t expect this at all.  Definitely one of the highlights of the book.

Let’s talk about what I did not like.

• It just wasn’t scary at all.  Maybe if it wasn’t promoted as a scary book I would not have expected the book to scare me.
• [spoiler]So there was this peculiar child (forgot the name) that had incredible strength. The thing is, the author HAD to add that SHE was all brawn with no brains and was really slow. Can’t a female be strong and intelligent at the same time? Come, on![/spoiler]
• The sort of love story was just creepy! [spoiler]Because the girl used to be Jacob’s grandfather’s girlfriend/love interest.[/spoiler]  Talk about gross, yeah?
• It wasn’t as scary as I expected.  And since it was marketed as a spine-tingling fantasy, I really expected more.
• Definitely more of a middle-grade book than a YA.

Let’s talk about the narrator.

Jesse Bernstein did a great job with narrating the book.  He was a little slow in reading so I had to speed it up to about 1.2x the normal speed.  Otherwise, I would have been bored out of my eyes.

Recommendations.

If you haven’t read this book yet, I recommend going to your local library and try it out first before purchasing.  This is also recommended for middle grade or younger kids.

My last thoughts.

I may or may not read the other books in the series.  This is definitely not like the Harry Potter series.

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