Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children -Ransom Riggs

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During this Halloween season, I thought this book would be a good addition especially since there is a movie to compare and critique as well.

The Book:

 The most unique aspect to the book are the photos. Riggs explains "All the pictures in this book are authentic, vintage found photographs, and with the exception of a few that have undergone minimal post-processing, they are unaltered."( p. 354)
They are scattered throughout the book giving life to the characters and giving your imagination a direction to how your mind will unfold the story in the mind's eye.

Emma Bloom

Riggs continues "They were lent from... people who have spent years and countless hours hunting through giant bins of unsorted snapshots at flea markets and antique malls and yard sales to find a transcendent few, rescuing images of historical significance and arresting beauty from obscurity..."(p. 354)
The pictures have an aspect of mystery to them which at least to me adds to the spookiness to each one and thus reminding me of Halloween.
I love the idea of telling a story from a few photos and creating a mystical world in which we are would like to take part. It is about a boy trying to solve a mystery in his family and finding the answers in the most unlikely way imaginable and discovering it is his inheritance. 

I enjoyed the concept of the time loops and can imagine the many ways they are be explored and all the adventures that can be had.
I love how the pictures are black and white, the story unfolded in my head black and white as well as. It feels ironic in a way because the characters and the story-line is as vibrant and outstanding as can be yet it exists without the associated colors that are usually accompanied. It is proof that you do not need color for a story to be amazing.


The Movie: Spoiler Alert!

First of all, the whole cast is phenomenal! 
Next, for the average movie watcher, the movie was enjoyable, frightening and thrilling all at the same time. But for those of us who read the book first there are several things that are disconcerting. The biggest one was that they switched the peculiarities of Emma and Olive. Why??!!? There is no obvious reason, and the only reason that I could envision was maybe they wanted to shoot a scene or two to appear exciting. (e.g. the scene with Emma blowing the water out of the sunken ship in order to impress Jake that made it to the trailer). It is a blow in the face to the creative rights of the author to say change something so integral to the story. I am very disappointed with this change of no significant purpose. It is distracting to the whole movie.
The beginning is done very well and stays true but the ending does stray away from the book. (I am stilling asking myself why!)
I did appreciated how the beginning had a dull color scheme and then everything brightens up drastically with the knowledge of the loop and the lives the peculiars they lead, it has a nice imagery.
It is spooky in all the right parts and there are some fun battles scenes that are fun and unique.
They also was a struggle to explain the way the time loops worked and is a bit confusing to those who have not yet read the books. Because this is a new concept unique to the book, they should have made sure to clarify, I mean seriously, how hard could it have been???
So there are my pros and cons, what did you think?