Birdwoman and Her Orphanage of Sideshow Freaks

 This post pretty much fits my mood about voting in this election.  

And now, gentle reader, we return to the world of the macabre for young adults with an incredible bildungsroman story of adventure, familial love, and psychological warfare: Birdwoman and Her Orphanage of Sideshow Freaks.  

Whoops, I mean Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs.

348 Pages

A mysterious island.  An abandoned orphanage.  A strange collection of very peculiar photographs.  It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience.  As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen year old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.  As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that Miss Peregrine’s children were more than just peculiar.  They may have been dangerous.  They may have been quarantined on a desert island for good reason.  And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.  A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

My Response:

Initial reaction:  Well, I knew that there was more than one book in the series, and I started to read it, but I really dreaded finishing it.  I got through about 5 pages.  Blechk.

Sentence Summary:  Angsty teenage grocery store heir witnesses his grandfather's murder by ghoulish monstrosity, investigates further, time travels, meets bizarre children and bird woman, tries to save the world, and leaves us hanging.

This book is so full of teenage angst and crappy writing that it makes me want to revert to my 14 year old attitude, rolling my eyes and sneering "Whatever" every five seconds.  Riggs is at least a moderate storyteller- it is kind of a page turner.  The vocabulary is there, the action is there, but there's just something missing:

Beauty.  Goodness.

This entire book is fraught with an obsession of all things dark, dreary, and bizarre.  The story is coupled with bizzare antique photographs that are, in two words, interestingly creepy.   Riggs describes the pictures so you are compelled and curious enough to turn the page.  I think he did an ok job pairing up the photographs to the story, but they really don't do much for it.  

The most disappointing thing about this book is that it's cover will attract 6-8th graders.  While I might say that it's ok for 8th grade, the protagonist is 16.  There's some foul language and some emotional problems that are quite a bit advanced for any middle schooler to understand.

On the whole, I do not think that this book promotes virtue.  It promotes selfishness.  The main character, Jacob, is trying to find out what happened in his grandfather's past after he hears the cryptic last words of the old man.  The rest of the plot is just so completely convenient that I really don't want to describe it anymore.  

Transcendentals?  This book seriously lacks goodness and beauty, but the search for truth is apparent.  However, we harken back to biblical times and are constantly asking "what is truth?"  What is true for Jacob and the peculiar children is not true for everyone else, and vice versa.   It's not at all pleasant.

Overcome human condition?

Attitude toward Catholicism?  There really is none.  Jacob is Jewish, and he doesn't practice.  His grandfather escaped the Nazis.  Jacob and his dad stay at an Inn called the "Priest Hole," and we find out the significance of the name was due to the fact that they used to hide priests in cellar-type spots during anti-Catholic raids.

Paganry?  No, but a serious obsession with dark things.  Each of the peculiar children have a "gift."  One of them is super strong, the other can manipulate fire, another can make plants grow, one boy has bees that live inside him, and one can resurrect the dead for a time.  This character is probably the most disturbing.  Enoch's peculiar "gift" of "resurrection" is disgusting and horrifying.  The first time we meet him, he's sitting on the ground with several clay figurines that he's fashioned.  We learned that he's taken the hearts out of mice and put them into these figurines to animate them.  WTH?!?

Swearing?  A bit

Violence?  garden variety but nothing too gory (if you think that using four sheep hearts to resurrect a full-grown man for a time isn't gory).

Appropriate age?  Angsty teenagers

Notable Quoteables:  I like this particular quotation because it's bearing the light of truth.  

"I had acute stress and nightmares and was sitting alone in a falling-down house and crying hot, stupid tears all over my shirt.  All because of a seventy-year-old hurt that had somehow been passed down to me like some poisonous heirloom, and monsters I couldn't fight because they were all dead, beyond killing or punishing or any kind of reckoning" (104).


In other news, the movie for this book just came out.  I am quite excited to see it, actually, because (content aside) the entire thing looks so hopeful and good.  Also, Tim Burton is at the helm of it, so that also makes me happy.  He's good at being dark and beautiful at the same time.  We'll have to see.

Check out this preview:

So, this book has allowed me to come up with my other award. I now have four:  Word Nerd Approved, So Close, Meh, and WASTE.  We already know about WNA and WASTE.  So Close is a book that could be approved if it weren't for a few minor details.  Meh will be awarded to those books that are not WASTE, but not really great, either.  Meh books do have purpose, and they might even have merit, but they don't excite me or make me want to continue reading the series.  So, congratulations, Birdwoman!  You're the first recipient of Meh!

Update:  So me and the husband saw the movie a few weeks ago.  While it was beautifully shot and had a pretty compelling score, the plot was weak, the characters weaker, and there were quite a few things that they added that weren't in the book.  The entire movie felt rushed and shallow.  However, it wasn't quite as dark as the book.  I'd also give the movie a "Meh" rating.