#Audiobook #Review: 4 out of 5 stars for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs @ransomriggs @PRHAudio #RIPXI

TITLE: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

SERIES: Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, Book #1
AUTHOR: Ransom Riggs 

NARRATOR: Jesse Bernstein
PUBLISHER: Random House Audio
PUBLICATION DATE: June 13, 2011

FORMAT: Unabridged audiobook
LENGTH: 9 hrs and 41 mins 
GENRE: Young Adult, Fantasy

A mysterious island.

An abandoned orphanage.

A strange collection of very curious photographs.

It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that makes for a thrilling listening experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets 16-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 the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

MY REVIEW:

Riggs created such a wonderful setting for this story! He hooked me right at the start with Grandpa Portman’s stories that he told his young grandson, Jacob, about the “peculiar” children from the orphanage in Wales where he grew up, after having been shipped there from Poland at the age of 12 just before World War II. Grandpa shows to Jacob old photographs of the “peculiars,” who have skills and abilities like levitation and flying. After young Jacob announces to Grandpa one day that he no longer believes in Grandpa’s “fairy” stories, the subject is dropped and Grandpa never speaks of it again. The story then moves forward to when Jacob is a teenager, and he receives a frantic call from his Grandpa asking for his key. Jacob and his parents think that Grandpa is suffering from dementia, and the key that Grandpa is referring to is the one to the lockbox in his garage that contains a stockpile of guns and knives. When Jacob arrives at Grandpa’s, the house is empty but he finds a flashlight in the backyard with its beam pointed to the woods. His grandfather has been attacked and lies bleeding to death, and Jacob tries to comfort him. Grandpa tells him a bunch of things that don’t make any sense to Jacob, and he assumes that it is only the dementia. Grandpa makes Jacob promise that he will go to the island because it is not safe, and then he dies. All that took place in the first chapter! At the encouragement of Jacob’s psychiatrist, who feels that Jacob is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, Jacob and his father plan a trip to Cairnholm Island off the coast of Wales which is the location of the orphanage where Grandpa grew up. Jacob’s parents and psychiatrist feel that a visit to the place will put Jacob at peace that Grandpa’s tales were truly just stories.

I loved everything about Cairnholm Island, which feels like you are stepping back in time with the lack of technology. Jacob finds the orphanage, and he is disappointed that it is just a decrepit and abandoned building. However, things aren't always what they seem! Jacob begins to piece things together and solves the riddles of what Grandpa was trying to convey to him.

I felt that the story lost a bit of its steam around the middle of the book, and it dragged here for me. However, I did enjoy the ending and will continue with the series. I am also looking forward to seeing the movie in the theatre!

Jesse Bernstein is a new-to-me narrator, and I really liked listening to him. I enjoyed his characterizations, which kept me engaged in the story.

I am very appreciative of the publisher, Random House Audio, for making a digital file available for download, which contains all the photographs and letters from the printed copy of the book. I think it adds to the mysteriousness of the story, and I find the antique photos both fascinating and creepy!

MY RATING:

4 stars!!  It was really good, and you should put it on your TBR list if you enjoy fantasy!

This book qualifies as: 

#30 for my 2016 You Read How Many Books? Challenge

#30 for my 2016 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge
#12 for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2016
#12 for my 2016 TBR Pile Reading Challenge

#4 for my New Author Challenge 2016
#5 for my 2016 New Narrator Reading Challenge
#5 for my 2016 New To You Reading Challenge
#3 for my 2016 It's New To Me Series Starter Challenge

#29 for my Backlist Books Reading Challenge

#25 for my 2016 Audiobook Challenge
#3 for my 2016 Eclectic Reader Challenge
#1B for my The Reporters Challenge 2016
#18 for my 2016 Full House Reading Challenge
#9 for my What an Animal IX Reading Challenge 2016
#1 for my 2016 Book to Movie Challenge

#15 for my 2016 Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge
#7 for my 2016 YA Reading Challenge
#4 for my Peril the First Category of R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril XI

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