Wow, did this book ever turn out to be a disappointment for me. With that wonderfully creepy cover photo, I thought for sure this would be a gothic romp I would love. Indeed, the inside of the book is full of more of these eerie old photos, some clearly tampered with to create a supernatural effect, while others were just straightforwardly creepy on their own. After paging through and looking at the pictures, I was sure the book would use these old photos as part of the narrative.
And the author did, but not to good effect. The story is about 16-year-old Jacob and the chain of events that start when his beloved but dementia-riddled grandfather dies violently, but not before muttering some bewildering words in Jacob's ear. When Jacob can't seem to recover from his grandfather's death, his parents have him visit a psychiatrist who eventually suggests that Jacob needs to visit his grandfather's childhood home, an island off the coast of Wales which housed an orphanage of sorts, providing haven for children displaced by the Nazis during WWII. Jacob's father, an ornithologist wannabe, agrees to take Jacob there so he can work on yet another book about birds (Jacob's father has a talent for not finishing things). But of course when Jacob starts exploring the island, all is not as it seemed to be.
Where to start with what I didn't like about the book? Right off the bat, I wish I'd known it was supposed to be the first of a series. Nowhere on the cover was that indicated, yet the ending is as "stay tuned for the next sequelicious segment" as any I've ever read. I had a terrible suspicion during the last 50 pages that there was too much going on to be wrapped up by the end, and it turned out I was right.
I really, really hate expecting a book to "end" somehow (even somewhat ambiguously), only to find out it's supposed to be a series.
As it is, it's not a series I'll return to. Maybe the photos, so wonderful to look at, put too big a burden on the author, as often he seemed to be stretching to wrap the stories and characters around them. Maybe it would have been better to let the pictures tell their own nonfiction story, a la Wisconsin Death Trip, a wonderfully creepy collection of old photos. As it is, in Miss Peregrine, the whole doesn't hang together companionably at all.
Worse, the characters are for the most part stock characters, not fully developed and in some cases running together. The plot is often predictable and labored. Jacob's relationship with his father doesn't seem remotely believable, and some of his father's actions make no fictional sense at all.
So why did I finish it?
Because I'd gotten that far, mostly because of the photos, that I wanted to see what happened.
And I didn't even get to find out.
Nope...no more Miss Peregrine or her Peculiar Children for me. It it hadn't been the library's book, it would have been thrown across the room when I read the last page and left for the dogs to chew on.
