I've had a few issues with this book.
Although I really liked the story and premise of it, I've had problems with Jacob. In the first chapter it he describes himself (I wouldn't consider this a spoiler as it appears at the beginning of the book and doesn't reveal anything about the story, anyway)
Jacob describes himself as a spoiled brat. His mother is intensely rich and his uncles own the company that he's got a job at and tries everything to get fired from it, behaving incredibly unrespectful toward his boss, which made him, in my eyes, extremely unlikeable.
Because of that, I intended to put the book down, but since my bookclub wanted to read this, I kept on going. The further I got into the story, the more interesting it became. The book uses antique pictures, as you may know, that were made to fit into the sory.
The photos were quite powerful, but I felt the author tried too hard at some points to fit them into the story (why would sleeping granddad be appreciated by readers? Well.) and the writing lacked descriptions, I think because of those photos.
- SPOILERS AHEAD -
The next issues I've had was the use of terminology. Since the major part of the story is set in 1940, you know, World War II having a go, I disliked the monsters (that were not Nazis) being called 'hollowgast'. I think it's disrespectful and nothing else. The resemblance this word has with the Holocaust is, in my eyes, not necessary and extremely out-of-place. But that's just my opinion. Another thing I didn't like was that Miss Peregrine divided 'the human race' into peculiar and common. That's outspoken racism, and in the setting of World War II reminds me of Nazi language.
Also, the childrens' behaviour. Or, rather, the 'game' they mention. Raiding the town - I think that's what they call it - involves scaring the inhabitants of the Island to bits and then making up for it by resetting their loop hole, stating they won't remember a thing after that, since the date never changes for the people outside the loop. The only characters that are against this are Emma and Jacob, although the issue is never raised again after being mentioned. Still - knowing that these children are far from being the cute and innocent creatures they seem to be - Jacob doesn't care. He doesn't care.
Nevertheless, I liked the way the story went. Jacob became more and more likeable, although, as I already mentioned before, the writing style lacked loooooots of descriptions. I think the author mentions certain accents on people and since they're on a Welsh island later on in the story this shouldn't shock anyone, but hardly ever expresses those accents in written language. One character, for example, is said to have a Cockney accent but apart from abbreviations there's nothing that would qualify the voice of this character as distinct from the others because of his accent.
I was able to foreshadow certain events throughout the story, spoiling myself in some way, I think, and I was rambling about how the main character wouldn't notice. Other events, though, took me by surprise, so I won't take any points off because of that.
What I don't get is how Jacob is comfortable getting involved with his grandfather's ex-girlfriend - he doesn't even give it a second thought. Since she isn't his grandmother or something and they're not related, I guess it's relatively okay and doesn't count as 'gross', but still, I'd state it's one of the weirdest relationships that I've ever read about. Since the romance has quite a minor part in the story, I guess it didn't bother me too much.
I hope the next two volumes will make up to the unique story this one revealed. Although I have no idea what possibly could happen next except for the good ones winning over the bad ones. As always, I guess
Check out my rewiews of Hollow City and Library of Souls!
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