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I have recently given up on “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”. I listened to it as an audio
book from Audible and that hurt it severely as the guy doing the reading was
awful. That being said I can list many good things about the story that if not
for a particular fatal flaw would have made me love it, but as is they just
feel like a lot of wasted potential.
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| This book. This is the book. |
1) I like the underlying themes of reliving things, a form of time
travel is in the story and that plays along with the setting that time forgot
and the pictures of the peculiar children, the strange swamp mummy that is in
the little town’s museum, and allusions made to family legacies.
2) I like the fascinating backstory about the protagonist's
Grandfather, if there had been no supernatural elements and the story had just
been about a kid finding out his grandfather's tragic life fleeing Poland and
then having his adopted home in Wales bombed by the Nazi’s it would have been
great on its own.
3) The scenes in which real action and tension are happening are
great, the death of the grandfather which kicks off the story is tense and
awesome.
4) The creepy/strangeness of the supernatural elements are great;
they have the feel of a more magical Addams Family or a Tim Burton movie (hence
why his choice to direct the movie adaptation was a smart one).
But here is
the fatal flaw: the main character is crap. He is an entitled stupid asshole who mentions
being in lots of honors courses, but aside from occasionally using a word you
would see in an ACT prep book there is no indication of his intellect. I think I muttered, "Go fuck
yourself" multiple times when listening to him try and blunder his way
thru a conversation any halfway intelligent person would have anticipated and
planned for (again maybe it had to do with the voice actor whose constant upward
inflection, like every sentence was a question or statement of being confused
made the character sound like even more of an idiot).
The protagonist (whose actual name I have forgotten) isn't a
complete blank slate like Harry Potter, so the audience can’t just jump into
him and pretend they are the one on the adventure. The lead also is not clever or funny so I
don't enjoy being along for the ride on his adventure. He's just a jerk and I don't have the patience
to see how his character arc manifests.
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| The book also does not give me the impression that Miss Peregrine was hot like the surface of the sun. I don't know whether to think of this as a miscasting or the filmmakers making something better in the adaptation? |
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