Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

Linky link!!!  First of all, author used a bunch of "found" images to illustrate the book, and that was a fantastic choice! It added a bit of fun to it, and it needed that bit of fun, because otherwise it was a tad weak. Seriously. I tried really hard to make this my new Harry Potter, or Hunger Games, but no dice. It's not a bad book, it's just not the greatest young adult book ever written.

Here's a bit about it:

Main character: Jacob. Jacob's grandfather used to tell him these fantastic stories about his life in an orphanage/children's home, with all these special children who could do extraordinary things. As Jacob grew up, he believed these stories less. Then, grandfather dies. Jacob sees the thing that killed him, and decides he needs to unravel the mystery of his grandfather's life if he's going to ever be able to cope with his death. He travels all the way to Wales, to a tiny little island, searching for the Home. Spoilers!


He finds it. And through some time travel made possible by a woman who can turn into a bird, he finds the children--all of them still children. They're in hiding, you see. Some of their kind are evil (which is what killed the grandpa) and so they hide in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over again. The REALLY bad guys can't go through time loops. Then, they're attacked by a really bad guy and a slightly lesser evil guy, and they have to flee the island and search out more of their kind, get help for their birdwoman, and warn the others. Jacob decides to stay with them, leaving his family without notice. Honestly, the way they're written, they deserve it. But, it still feels like a really shitty thing to do. I guess because I have a much better relationship with my parents than Jacob. Also, I'm starting to notice this more and more in young adult books, this willingness to leave normalcy, and family, to go on adventures. Maybe it's not a new thing, but maybe I'm just noticing it because I'm an adult and the idea of all these kids virtually on their own frightens me. I worry about their safety now! I am a responsible adult! Whereas I saw nothing wrong with it as a teenager.

Also, hey, guess what? Amazon has these Kindle Singles and you can buy short stories for like 3 dollars. And, also, awesomely, I can go on Amazon, buy it, send it to my phone, and then IMMEDIATELY I AM READING A SHORT STORY BY STEPHEN KING THAT I JUST FOUND OUT EXISTED.

I am kind of excited about this.