Novel Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

            Okay. This is my last review for the night, and I’ll have to see more movies and read more books to get on the review train again. I haven’t been caught up in a while, so this is rather relieving for me. That stupid sticky won’t stare me down anymore. Ha! VICTORY.

            Moving on.

            Since I saw it on Wal-Mart shelves (I know, not the best place to book spy), I’ve wondered what Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was all about. Recently I ordered it and polished all 348 pages of it off in three days. Oh, it was that good.

            The story moves kind of slowly at first. We’re introduced to a not-so-hard-to-figure-out MC (main character) named Jacob Portman, and his grandfather tells stories about an island where the sun never stopped shining and peculiar children lived, himself included. Well, Jacob’s progression from his grandfather’s death to finally stepping through to the world that was told of if a somewhat tedious experience, but there are moments where you’re grabbed by the face and forced to keep reading, like when Jacob first finds the house. Then when he goes there and opens the trunk.

            When it comes to character, all the peculiar children—and even Miss Peregrine—were extremely well-written. But Jacob fell flat in places. Sometimes he just seemed like some whiny rich kid who was chasing after his grandfather’s stories for answers. Other times he was the heroic and conflicted hero we all want to see win. The flip may have been intentional, but the progression was slower than it needed to be.

            Two things saved this book: (1) the unique and refreshing integration of strange antique photographs to make the story come to life, and (2) the crazy-creative villains and wide-open space for a series. I. Hated. Dr. Golan. Period. What a jerkbag! Oh, I knew there was something fishy about him, especially when he was at the airport, but the end clinched it for me. And what an end for him. Ha. Take that, nosy parker.

Ransom Riggs’ debut novel could have used some major polishing in some areas, but when Jacob transformed into the hero (finally) I couldn’t wait to keep turning the pages. For Pete’s sake, Emma was such a BA, she outshined Jacob the entire time. No pun intended.

One thing I didn’t appreciate was the unnecessary use of excessive language. A cuss here or there doesn’t bother me, but when you take the Lord’s name in vain? There’s never any call for that, I don’t care how dramatic a scene may be. Minor cusses, fine. Misusing God’s name, not okay. That’s a huge factor in lowering the book’s score. I give it Four flipped pages out of Ten.

The Book Cover Rule of Thumb

I almost fell asleep, Roland March.

            We’ve all heard it: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Yet we do it anyway, and for good reason. We read with our aesthetic appeal before we read with our logic center. (Fancy words for, “Good artwork attracts.”) But why is that? Bah, I don’t know. I’m not here to explain some high-end scientific fact. I’m here to lay down a jam, son.

            Sort of.

            What I want to say is this: Judge books by their covers, but at discretion. For example, looking back I can see that Back On Murder by J. Mark Bertrand’s cover looks like it’ll be a cookie-cutter cop story about a rogue middle-ager looking for his identity. That’s exactly what we received. And Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman told us to prepare for a mystical journey through a fantastic land. Which is also what happened.

            But then there are exceptions, the ones that fool you. For instance, Dragon’s Blood by Jane Yolen gives us the idea we’re about to receive some cheap sci-fi knock-off and we’ll be disappointed. Far from it! That book is rife with creativity and originality. It was great! Or Issym by Jessie Mae Hodsdon, for another example. The cover gave us the impression we would get a fantastic fantasy bursting at the seams with adventure and grit. Dragons! Woo! Were we disappointed? Uh, yeah.

WHERE IS YOUR GRIT?!?!

            Here’s the lowdown. Covers serve a purpose. They’re supposed to attract the reader so that any other book in mind gets forgotten and the eye-catching one gets picked up. Yeah, I know. Cheap media influence: Shiny is better. But alas. That’s what we’ve gotten into. But that can be overcome! Despite the cover, the writing and story are always what prevail in the land of writing. While the cover may be glossy and pretty, if the writing sucks, forget it. So judge books by their cover, but only after you’ve had a taste of the writing and story within. Then you’ll see just how appealing the book really is.

Novel Review: Seekers: Return to the Wild, Book Two, - The Melting Sea by Erin Hunter

            Remember my post on Island of Shadows? I’m going to try my hardest not to be too scathing here. Bear with me. (Get it? Bear? Never mind.)

            So! In Island of Shadows, we found Toklo, Lusa, Kallik, and Yakone finally off that stupid island and onto the next leg of their journey. And that’s what we get for the vast majority of the book. Travel. Movement. Stopping to rest here, hunting there, digging out a den over in that corner. Again, this is not why I read a book. If I wanted to see bears traveling and digging out dens, I would watch the Discovery Channel or NatGeo (National Geographic). I do not understand what is running through Erin Hunter’s head right now, but quality certainly isn’t at the top of the list, and the stumble is painfully obvious. Has been for quite a few books, not just in this series.

            While the hunting and traveling is okay to a degree, we as readers demand more action, more struggle. Yeah, the bears get into binds once in a while, but it’s nothing that’s not easily fixed, and that aggravates the crap out of me. Nothing life-threatening has happened yet, and that is an annoyance factor as well. Where’s the stress? The internal turmoil? The doubt, the wanting to give up? Everything that makes characters as human as possible? Even when their animals, they need to display the same hero characteristics. No exception is given there. Look at the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. They hit obstacles all the time in their journeys, and they struggle against evil as hard as they can, and they’re all animals! (Note: While some may argue that his plots are “recycled,” I say you can never have enough hero lore in a land steeped in as much history as his is.)

            But that struggle is only present in certain situations in The Melting Sea. We run into random bears that need “help” and they hang around for a minute, but then the ultimate appearance of them has no real meaning. The reason the white bears were being taken to land is left unexplained, and that bothered me. Finally, when we did have some battling to do, Kallik finally showed some internal turmoil, but not for long. And the conflict with Taqqiq and his crew was short at best. I think that could have taken up a much larger portion of the book to add spice and conflict that would have ripped Kallik apart had Taqqiq not bowed to her anger so quickly, and then that would spawned more conflict and tension because the seals were growing scarce and the ice was melting, and Taqqiq’s crew would be stalking about causing more havoc . . . you can see how it needed to be written. I don’t care about a crag in a stupid mountain that the bears have to climb up. I care about what they’ll do in the face of hardship.

            Another note before the verdict: The writing seems . . . not choppy. But it seems like the Erin responsible for this series isn’t giving it her all. The punches are lacking, and the dynamic flow of showing v. telling is interrupted with clichés and awkward phrasing. The flow is broken in plenty of places by too-long sentences and amateur Wordsmithing. Sad. They used to be so good. Seekers: Return to the Wild: The Melting Sea gets Two flipped pages out of Ten.

Novel Review: Seekers: Return to the Wild, Book One - Island of Shadows by Erin Hunter

            I read a blog post on novelmatters.com recently that really grabbed my attention. It was called “Storyteller Vs. Status Seeker.” The premise of the post was that real and true storytellers can’t wait to get back in and start writing again, no matter how “important” publicity may be. They want words, and they will get their words one way or another. Status seekers are storytellers who get caught up in pumping out the next novel for the sake of noveling. They want as many books as possible to be recognized as “that author.” Unfortunately, it happens a lot.

            Mega-unfortunately, it’s happened to one of my favorite authors of all time.

            Erin Hunter had an amazing first series of Warriors books that captured my imagination and took me to the forest I have never left in my mind as I followed Fireheart and Graystripe on their perilous journey to stay alive amidst so much war and devastation among the cat Clans. I will never forget the amazingness of that first series. However, as the years go by, the team of five have fallen from storytellers to status seekers. I witnessed this over their last warrior cat arc, Warriors: Omen of the Stars. Quality fell dramatically. All but two of the characters fell into the “blah” and “gray” categories. It was like a mass merging of personalities into one entity that somehow split itself into multiple creatures with slightly altering factors. Needless to say, I was severely annoyed. This quality downturn took a sharp hook into their bear series, Seekers.

            Now, the first series I can’t review because I read it a while ago and can’t remember everything about the books. But I can say that the last one in the first series disappointed. Hunter built up the plot to where the bears—Toklo, Lusa, Ujurak, and Kallik—were going to do something amazing, but what they ended up doing was destroying an oil tower to “save the wild.” (insert disappointed stoic face) Wow, really? This trend continues in the second series, Seekers: Return to the Wild.

            The first book pretty much was about this: travel and getting lost. The teaser offered us that Toklo, Lusa, Kallik, and now Yakone were going to get lost in a set of dark tunnels and be stuck there amidst peril and adventure as they tried to find their way out. Did it happen? No. They were lost for approximately two chapters, three at most. This—aggravated—me. To no end did it aggravate me. And the little bear they ended up encountering? Yeah, Nanulak was more a pestilence and annoyance than anything. I hated him so much I cannot begin to convey the frustration I harbored towards this bear. Oh, and yes, hunting and stuff is essential, but when the book is comprised of 80% hunting and travel with random, meaningless appearances from other bears (Tekani, the polar bear Toklo met up with briefly), then I fail to understand how the book made it onto the New York Times bestseller list. It failed in delivering what it promised. Miserably.

            Seekers: Return to the Wild: Island of Shadows gets Three flipped pages out of Ten.

Novel Review: House of Secrets by Tracie Peterson

            The time I post these are always contrary to the time I write them. FYI, it is currently 1:48 AM. I—cannot—sleep.

            To the matter at hand.

            Now. Normally when a normal person reads a fantasy book, they feel the need to go back to the real world with a life-fiction, as I call them. For me, it’s the other way around. I can only take so much life-fiction before I have to delve back into the realm of the speculatively concrete world of fantasy, where anything is possible. To test a popular CBA author, I wanted to read one of her most recent books that my mother just so happened to have (thanks, Mom!). House of Secrets by Tracie Peterson . . . the cover entranced me. Usually books have elaborate layouts with inset text giving reviews or little teaser taglines. Not House of Secrets. The cover is simply three sisters holding each other in a family embrace, their backs turned to the viewer, and a forest in front of them. The title and author’s name are simply typed onto the picture in such a plain way, I was immediately drawn to the novel. Which is unusual, considering a year ago, I probably would have never considered this book to be on my TBR list.

            Anyway, to the writing. Bailee Cooper, the main character and oldest Cooper sister, had a distinct-ish voice. You could tell that she was trying to keep the family secrets and keep her sisters safe from what she thought would harm them. However, something about her felt a little too plain. A little too . . . expected. This was the case with most of the characters in the novel. Too much expectedness.

            A lot of the book involved talking, too. I mean, don’t get me wrong; novels are comprised of 85% dialogue. It’s what moves the story forward. But a little action now and then wouldn’t hurt, and I’m not talking about cooking a simple meal. Yeah, that’s action, but when the meal is alluded to instead of some talking while cooking (seeing as how the sisters had some special spaghetti recipe) irked me. Instead the talking was done mostly around seating areas and the seaside. These intimate spaces served well for the dialogue exchange but impeded any real movement that could have added to both the characters’ personalities and the story’s lack of action.

            Dialogue aside, there were few twists, and the one I didn’t completely see coming wasn’t all shocking because I had a niggle about it anyway. I think that Geena, the second-oldest Cooper sister, should have been diagnosed with their mother’s psychological disease to make things more intense. Geena could have added a lot of tension with normality one second, craziness the second. That would have been a twist we wouldn’t have seen coming but only suspected, because Piper, the youngest Cooper, displayed signs of the illness (I won’t tell you what it was in case you want to read the book). It turned out that Piper only had hypothyroidism, not the mental illness, but Geena should have had it. I can only grieve the lost action and detail that could have been added, the tension that could have smoked things up.

            Now, these aren’t the major reason I had a problem with the novel. My biggest irk was the romance plot. It—was—blatant—and—obvious. Bailee hardly struggled with herself, Mark seemed far too perfect to be human, and their kiss? Pah. I expected fireworks. I got a sparkler. A good novel is supposed to make you feel. I felt nothing. I wanted more heat, more struggle, more undeniable passion that made the two unable to stay away from each other, but Bailee could have fought against that even more and made the first kiss that much more explosive! Sadly, it didn’t happen.

            All in all, I wouldn’t call House of Secrets a bad book. It was good to read. Easy. But it didn’t challenge me. Not in life or faith or writing skill. And I never got punched in the face. (A good book always punches you in the face somehow.) Tracie Peterson kinda fell flat on this one, folks. Five flipped pages out of Ten.