Blogging for SIX Years and Ramblings About Music, TV, and Miss Peregrine

This blog turned six years old today... I feel really old. I say that every year, but seriously: Time goes by so damn quickly!

Sorry the posts have been coming really slowly lately - I'm afraid it might take a little while before things really pick up again. University + an assortment of major personal problems = no time for bloggie. I haven't given up though, and I'm still always thinking about stuff I could post, but those ideas are stored for a less hectic day.

After all, so many exciting things are happening. In the indie music world, we got new albums from Daughter and Radical Face (I've only listened to portions so far), and later on we'll be getting new metal albums from Lacuna Coil and Epica - I'm really excited about those. The new Lacuna Coil album is going to be called Delirium, and I have a feeling it'll resonate with me considering the craziness of my life this year and the hints the band has given about the overall direction and concept.

In terms of television, the only show I have been able to keep up with, Mob Wives, came to an end. Everyone's favorite star from the show, Angela "Big Ang" Raiola, passed away after battling cancer, and that broke my heart. She was so sweet and full of energy - I cried when I heard the news.

Now I somehow got sucked into Family Therapy with Dr. Jen... how the hell did I jump onto the reality TV bandwagon?

Also... have y'all seen the trailer for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? It seems like the rest of the Internet is pretty happy with it, so I imagine I might annoy some people, but... I'm not digging this at all. Like, nothing I enjoyed about the book in terms of feel/atmosphere looks like it'll be present. I think I might skip out on this one.

Well, that was nice catching up, but I'm going to do more homework now.

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

Jacob's grandfather has always showed him the most peculiar old photographs and told him strange stories to match, but how could he ever believe fairy tales of such sorts? After all, his grandfather's state of mind was questionable due to experiences during World War II that surely traumatized him. In his need to find the truth about these odd photographs, Jacob takes a trip to an island outside Great Britain, where his grandfather once lived in an old orphanage there. Meanwhile, he finds that there is more to the orphanage than one could ever imagine, that what may seem absolutely crazy is reality. For this is no typical orphanage; it's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and while exploring it's remains Jacob finds himself in an otherworldly adventure.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is Ransom Riggs' debut novel, and I must say, it was put together very uniquely. I'm not just talking about the story itself, but the idea of putting in old photographs (some slightly manipulated to fit the story's purposes) throughout the book. As a book lover and a photography lover, I was quite intrigued.

This book is naturally spooky with its rainy, gloomy setting (not to mention the ties to World War II). It probably would have stayed eerie even without the monsters and children with strange abilities. However, the characters themselves didn't really freak me out, I enjoyed them. All of them are capable of wondrous things, each with an ability unique to them. Some are unusually strong, some levitate. I wouldn't want to anger any of them, but they all seemed to be generally nice people. Jacob was a pretty good main character. Even though he was an unhappy rich boy, he came off as very down-to-earth and made me laugh aloud when reading, particularly towards the beginning of the story.

On a darker note, Ransom Riggs wrote about the grieving process that Jacob went through quite impressively. I was so surprised to see how this aspect of death ended up being so reasonably written. From previous reading experiences, I have found that most authors don't do well with describing grieving characters. It seems that they only show a couple of emotional spurts that are written ineffectively, almost like they're not real, giving me little to no effect. Ransom Riggs was an exception because he's a great writer and did his job well.

The only major complaint I've been hearing about this novel is its ending. People claim it doesn't have one. Due to prior reading expereinces I have found that when people say things like that, they aren't looking through the right spectacles. In this case, there isn't a conclusion to the obvious large problem now at hand; however, Jacob comes to a conclusion of the dilemma he'd been facing for a while and finally figures out what he wants to do with his life and where he truly feels he belongs. That, my friends, is an ending. A good ending.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is different. It's a fun adventure filled with mystery that any age group can enjoy.

4.5/5 Stars


Riggs, Ransom. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Quirk Books
2011