Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
Narrated by Jesse Bernstein
Published by Quirk Books on June 7, 2011
Audiobook published by Random House Audio, June 10, 2011
Review first appeared on Cozy Little Book Journal on February 11, 2014
I think this is my favourite book from Quirk Books to date. I've always thought of them as just a novelty publishing house, best known for the Worst-Case Scenario guides and all of those Pride and Prejudice and Zombies type books. They make funny gifts, but they're not...well, they're not going to make anybody's list of favourite books. That is until now.
I was surprised and delighted by Miss Peregrine's. Based on the cover and the hype, I had high hopes that it would be a creepy and scary paranormal thriller. It wasn't. But as soon as I realized it was a YA novel about an adolescent boy tracing his grandfather's roots at a school for supernaturally gifted children, my expectations plummeted. I thought it would be awful. So in that sense, I was most pleasantly surprised.
The really inventive part of the book is that the story is informed by the author's collection of strange and fantastic photos, which then become the characters in the story. It's difficult to explain, but it makes sense when you see them. Oh, and you'll want to read the book in hardcover or paperback. The e-book does not do the photos any justice, and it's nice to be able to flip back and forth through them easily. I abandoned my e-book for a library copy of the print edition and I was glad I had.
As for the audiobook, well that's another story. Jesse Bernstein's narration is perfect for the first part of the book, when it's mostly just the voice and thoughts of a sullen and snarky boy in his teens. He's got that voice down. But as soon as the character of Jacob travels to Wales and encounters Miss Peregrine and all of her peculiar children, it all falls apart. Bernstein does not have the range he thinks he has, he's terrible at women's voices (truly, truly awful) and his attempts at accents are so bad that I missed half of what he said because I was laughing out loud. It's tragically bad.
But even still, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I even stuck with the audiobook, laughing and cringing as I was at some of the voices. I can't wait to read the sequel, Hollow City.
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