Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

by Ransom Riggs

At first look at the novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, you can’t help but being drawn in to reading the book.  I’ve seen the cover a ton of times, but it wasn’t until I picked it up to read it that I realized that the the creepy cover photo of the young girl actually shows her levitating!  When you flip through the book you see more creepy photos, like these:

All of which are real vintage photos that the author collected to tell his story.  The story of Miss Peregrine’s Home of Peculiar Children centers on sixteen year old Jacob.  At the beginning of the novel he finds his grandfather dead.  Jacob was close to his grandfather; he grew up with his grandfather’s fantastic stories of the orphanage where he grew up as an orphan of the war.  The orphanage was a place for children with special abilities like invisibility, super strength, and the ability to defy gravity.  The trauma of finding his grandfather dead causes Jacob to have vivid nightmares and for his parents to question his mental state.  Jacob desperately wants to know the truth about his grandfather, especially his childhood.  He suggests a trip to Wales with his father to the small island where Jacob’s grandfather grew up living at the orphanage.  It is on this island that Jacob discovers the truth about his grandfather and much more.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a good read, especially for someone who wants a to read a fantasy with a touch of horror.  Reading along with the creepy vintage photos makes every turn of the page a surprise.  This novel would be great for anyone who is a fan of X-Men, Harry Potter, The Magicians, and even Alice in Wonderland.

It is interesting to note that Tim Burton is in talks with 20th Century Fox to create the movie based on the book, for Miss Peregrine’s Home to Peculiar Children.  (Click here for the article on Deadline.)  Also, check out the really well-done book trailer below:

Angelfire

by Courtney Allison Moulton

Ellie believes that the nightmares she has are only nightmares, but the horrifying dark monsters that terrify her in the night seem so real.  When Ellie turns 17, her nightmares become reality and she meets Will.  Will is Ellie’s Guardian, because Ellie is a Preliator, an ancient warrior that is given the power to kill reapers (the dark monsters that she dreams of).  As Ellie begins to train and spend more time with Will, she learns that she has lived the life of the Preliator for hundreds of years and every time she is killed she comes back without the memories of her life and powers before.  Will has been her Guardian all this time and he has to find her every time she is reborn and helps her remember her true self.  This life for Ellie is different, however, because she is only remembering bits and pieces of her old lives which makes it harder for her to access her true power.  This life is also different for Ellie because the dark reapers are getting closer to waging war on humanity, but in order to do that they must destroy Ellie’s soul so that she cannot be reborn to protect the human race once more.

Angelfire is a great read for anyone who wants an action packed supernatural read.  The mythology in Angelfire is centered on angels; one that Moulton has carefully crafted and explained. The main character of Ellie is strong but flawed: since she cannot remember her true nature, Ellie does have a hard time becoming a true warrior.  However, the battles that she endures in the book and the way she handles not knowing her true self make her a very relate-able character.  Ellie is a character that is molded after the Buffy type: a strong, kick-butt female who struggles with what it takes to stay strong with also wanting to be a normal teenage girl.  She also has a funny, surly attitude that gives this novel a humorous undertone (much like Buffy).

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke and Bone centers around Karou, blue haired, lanky, artist and wickedly awesome errand runner.  In her sketchbook Karou draws monstrous characters like Brimstone, Kishmish, Issa and their adventures. Her friends and classmates think these stories and characters are brilliant except, what they don’t know because no one really knows anything about Karou, is that all those character are real.  Brimstone, the Wishmonger, raised her and trained her and now she runs errands for him around the world collecting teeth to exchange for wishes. While Karou is running her errands, frustrated that Brimstone never completely fills her in about why teeth in exchange for wishes, there’s danger mounting as black hand prints are found burned into doors all over the world. The same doors Karou uses as a portal to complete her errands.  Whose hand prints are on the doors? Some claim they’ve seen shadows with wings, others claim the felt a feather grace their skin.  In the middle of Morocco on an errand Karou finds herself face to face with exactly who’s been leaving those hand prints and who’s out to exact revenge on Brimstone, and once they’ve met neither of their worlds will ever be quite the same.