Summer List Review {Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children + Heathers}

This is the second installment of me reviewing a list of books and movies I set out to read, watch, and enjoy throughout the summer. You can check out my first installment here and the list I made here.

The next book I checked off my list was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. This was I believe his first book, but the sequel to this novel is already out if I'm not mistaken.

This novel follows a young boy, Jacob Portman, who finds himself on a mysterious Welsh island after the death of his grandfather. His grandfather was a Jew during the Holocaust who was sent to an orphanage on this island during WWII and eventually fought in the war himself.

During his childhood, his grandfather shows Jacob a set of photographs of "peculiar children" who lived in the orphanage alongside him. They all have some sort of supernatural powers (levitation, invisibility, etc.), but as Jacob grows older he seems to think the photographs are just botched and his grandad is crazy/enjoys telling a good story.

His grandfather's dying words to Jacob are instructions which eventually lead him to the island where the orphanage he spent his childhood at is located. 

It's definitely a novel written by someone who has that insane ability that I one day hope to acquire that allows you to seemingly effortlessly create another world. I enjoyed the novel, although at times I didn't really love Rigg's writing. Some things weren't explained well and other things were explained way too much.

Another thing was that literally half the novel was spent on Jacob trying to decipher his grandfather's last words and what they meant and as somewhat intriguing as that sounds, it got old real quick. I was literally screaming I'M NOT SURE WHAT THE INSTRUCTIONS 100% MEAN BUT I BET ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS GO TO THE ISLAND FOOL. He eventually goes to the island on recommendation of his therapist, without having much insight on the instructions anyways. Like man, I could have told you that without the need of a therapist.

I also liked the idea of incorporating these eerily weird photographs into the story. As teenagers, I believe we don't get enough "picture books" written on our level. I liked the break between reading to look at the vintage photographs. On some notes though, the pictures weren't really 'incorporated' into the novel as I would have hoped. The author would most times, simply introduce the character and then show a photograph of them right after.

Overall, it was an interesting read and I'll probably check out the sequel for the heck of it as the first wasn't painstakingly hard to read.

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The next movie I watched was called Heathers. It was a very funny movie that appealed to my strange teenage sense of humor.

 

It was like an 80s Mean Girls, but with murder and a much better plot line. As someone who thoroughly enjoys the artistic classic that is Mean Girls, I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this movie. It was very quotable to say the least as well, one of my favorites being, "Did you eat a brain tumor for breakfast?"

I honestly don't want to say too much on this movie as it's one of those things you just have to watch for yourself. Imagine a movie with a lot of croquet, murder, and 80s fashion. Also don't judge the movie by its movie poster (let's remember this was the 80s). I'm not a fan of romance movies in the slightest, but the man characters had a very different kind of relationship. Imagine a power couple who instead of ruling the world, murdered people together. I hope you're catching my drift here.

Just go immediately to your Netflix account and watch this movie so I don't have to find a million other ways to get my point across.

Have a fabulous day.