Three qualities that I expect from a good book are:
1. I can create images in my head using strong adjectives describing events or scenes in the novel. This is important because it gives me, as the reader, a more meaningful experience.
2. I want my book to have depth and a variety of emotions and tones. I want some parts to be spine-tingling and creepy. Action and adventure. Tense and suspenseful. Sad and moving.
3. Finally, I want the characters to be relateable. It's almost as if it gives me hope that I too could live in the adventures in the stories I read.
Riggs, Ransom. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2011. Print.
My book does in fact create images in my head. There's one excerpt that makes it impossible to not develop an image in my head.
"Her hand came ablaze, and among the flickering shadows I saw it, lurking among the troughs. My nightmare. It stooped there, hairless and naked, mottled gray-black skin hanging off its frame in loose folds, its eyes collared in dripping putrefaction, legs bowed and feet clubbed and hands gnarled into useless claws-- every part looking withered and wasted like the body of an impossibly old man-- save one. Its outsized jaws were its main feature, a bulging enclosure of teeth as tall and sharp as little steak knives that the flesh of its mouth was hopeless to contain, so that its lips were perpetually drawn back in a deranged smile."
I even read it out loud to Lydia to creep her out as well! Something unique about this book is that it has vintage black and white photographs that appear at certain parts. It helps to aid with creating images but it mostly just confirms what the text already described.
As for depth, this book has the creepiness factor down pretty well right from the start. Especially with the creepy photographs! The beginning is also sad. The book picks up and becomes heart-racing and adventurous. Then of course, there has to be some romance.
Jacob is far from 'flawless'. He's an ordinary kid with an ordinary part-time, minimum wage job. He's not popular, he only has one friend. Not a genius, but not an idiot. He's extremely relatable to most North American teens! But then he discovers he's not so ordinary, but rather quite peculiar! He gets to have this great adventure where he learns about his past and the danger that he has been all his life without even knowing it!
Reading your blog post has really pursuaded me to read the book, 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children'. I have never read a 'scary' book before mostly because I haven't found a scary book that has intrigued me to read it as much as this does. Even the title, peculiar, interests me because that word describes so much as to the feeling of the book, odd, but yet limits the reader knowing what is exactly peculiar about the characters.
ReplyDeleteGood post bronwyn and well structured, this makes me want to read this book!
ReplyDeleteNice post bronwyn, reading your post makes me want to read this book. It sounds like a really good book!
ReplyDeleteThe way you describe this book it seems very strange and the way you write about it makes me want to know more. The way you ended it was perfect I am going to read this book now.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a really good story. I wonder if it would be as good if it was a movie? I would really like to read it.
ReplyDeleteYes Kirsten, it would make an amazing movie!
ReplyDeleteWow, you are very thorough in this post. It makes me really want to read this book!
ReplyDeleteVery thorough start. Make sure that you check your spelling (excerpt) and include a proper citation following your direct quote (Author page). Otherwise an excellent start - your challenge will be to reduce your word count and try to be more concise. We will work on this for the online assessment.
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