Book 8 of 52: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

"A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs." This is the perfect description of this creepy adventure novel.

The story begins with a family tragedy that sends 16-year-old Jacob off on a journey with his father to a remote island off the coast of Wales. There he discovers an old abandoned orphanage and some old photos of some strange looking children. The photos shown in the book are actually real (borrowed from vintage photo collections) and helped the story to come alive. The children that once inhabited the house are very unusual, or "peculiar", and some may even say dangerous. The adventures that follow have Jacob learning more about these children, their headmistress, and his own family history.

What a terrific story! It kept my interest over a few late nights. While I think the intended audience may be teens, I throughly enjoyed it. (Just as I have enjoyed many other YA series like The Hunger Games and Harry Potter). This particular book has Tim Burton written all over it.  It will be perfect for the screen, and he would be the only director to do it justice.

This book was set up for a sequel. I was glad I knew ahead of time or else I would have been disappointed by the ending. Too much was left unexplained. But I'm looking forward to the next book which I've heard is supposed to come out in a few months. My big problem with this book was that I had a hard time reading the hand written letters and seeing the details of the photos on my Kobo. Despite my love of e-books, I recommend getting a paper version. I also recommend waiting until the sequel is available. If you're like me, I much prefer to read the books one after another, and not have to wait months (or years) in between.