"Sometimes it's better not to look back."

I am so glad I finally gave in and bought this book.

As always, in case you missed it:

My Pre-Reading

Someone somewhere called this book "Alice in Wonderland meets Harry Potter," and that's actually a pretty accurate I think. Plus a little bit of X-Men.

SPOILERS abound! But I'll try not to give too much away.

This was definitely one of the best books I've read in a while, if not all year. Ransom Riggs did a phenomenal job combining peculiar pictures with a peculiar story without making anything seem too farfetched. I think what made it even better was the inclusion of real events and real places. He takes an old man's stories of monsters and magical places and peculiar children and constantly switches between fantasy and the reality of WWII.

Jacob, as a character, is both simple and extraordinarily complex. As a child, he takes his grandfather's story at face value and although he believes them to be mostly fairy tales, he doesn't take them to be metaphors for his grandfather's wartorn history. As he gets older, he begins to dismiss the stories and believes everything to be simply his grandfather's method of coping with all of the horrors he dealt with as a child.

Then suddenly, Jacob's world in turned upside down when his grandfather is killed. He tries to figure out his grandfather's past, but learns so much more. All of the new children, Miss Peregrine,  and all of the other characters are mysterious and peculiar, and Riggs does an excellent job of creating characters based on real, odd photos.

I am so excited for a sequel and for a possible Tim Burton movie! Definitely a 5/5 on this book! Even if it wasn't entirely original, I still loved it all the way through.

--Ashley

Also, Paul is finally off the first page ;)