Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wasn't sure how many stars to give this book, three or four, but after reading about the author and his account of creating the story, settled on joining 130,000 people on GR.

The idea to wind a story around a collection of vintage pictures is interesting and fresh. And at first I really liked the book, like the first third, before anything 'supernatural' started to happen. After that point, (view spoiler)[after our hero goes to 1940 and finds the peculiar children living there (hide spoiler)], I had a distinct impression that it was written by another person. The first part is light, but gripping, while after that the writing abruptly becomes sloppy and boring. The world-building is limping; the author goes to great length explaining how this peculiar world works, but there are so, so many details that don't fit, it's amazing.

The author also didn't bother to do his homework. I can't be sure, as a non-native English speaker, but there are several slips, when supposedly European kids from the WW I time use words, such as skivvies, marked as Americanisms in dictionaries. The stunning display of flashlight fish the kids see also doesn't quite make sense. It struck me as odd, so I went to Wikipedia of course and looked up species that are called 'flashlight fish'. Naturally, most of them are deep-water fish that don't live in the Atlantic. There are two that can be found in the Atlantic, but one of them is deep-water dweller and the other is 'epipelagic to mesopelagic', which translates to 90-820 meters, that besides comes to 'shallower depths during daylight' (the scene happens at night). A bit deep for snorkeling, isn't it? Also, the author presumably thinks that human eyes consist of whites and pupils, nothing else.

The thing that bothers me most is the unique peculiar gift of the main character to see something that appeared in the universe a hundred years ago. Did those 'special' peculiars passed as 'normals' before that? How many other peculiars live with a gift not yet called upon?

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Review: The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep

The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep by Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Scrolling down the book's page on Goodreads I found that first several reviews start with a word 'creepy', and I totally agree! This 'new way of getting children to sleep' consists of reading incredibly boring stories with repetitive phrases meant to hypnotize the kid. The foreword says that if it didn't work the first time, just read it again. Great, just read an incredibly boring story several times and, bingo, the kid is asleep!

In my world, the bed time is the time for imagination, for interesting stories, for some time together, for reflecting on the day, and many other things, but definetely not for... that. I don't know a good word to describe what this book is supposed to do. There is no meaningful story in it, to think about and to compare with, no interesting pictures, nothing at all. If you say 'sleep, sleep, sleep...' long enough, it would have the same effect.

Sometimes, very rarely, I need my kid to go to sleep faster, but even then I wouldn't read this. I'd choose some authobiography or other non-fiction, boring for the kid, but interesting for me. Works every time. By the way, this 'new way of getting children to sleep' doesn't work. I honestly tried!

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Review: Vampire Knight, Vol. 2

Vampire Knight, Vol. 2 by Matsuri Hino
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It seems that the drawing is even worse than in the first volume. Besides, nothing actually happened in this volume, which is frustrating. Hence, one star.

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Review: Понедельник начинается в субботу

Понедельник начинается в субботу by Arkady Strugatsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my all-times favorites that I read and re-read (I can remember at least ten occasions). This particular session was special, because my husband was reading it aloud. And as soon as we reached the end, we started again. And then read again, selected parts.

The mix of surrealism and straightforward realism, irony and self-irony, fondness and disillusionment is amazing and breathtaking. This book shows the atmosphere among Soviet Union -> Russian scientists so accurately, as if it's a mirror. And it makes me feel both nostalgic and apprehensive, because it of course shows both good and bad sides, and also that they are the same. The things we love are pretty horrible, if we think about them long enough, but in most cases they are what they are. It's just the paradigm, the universe we live in. And the mirror to look in.

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Review: Vampire Knight, Vol. 1

Vampire Knight, Vol. 1 by Matsuri Hino
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm probably not the target audience for the book, but still I thought it would be so much better. First, I don't much appreciate the author's drawing style. Most characters look exactly (and I mean it, exactly) the same with the exception of hair style, which is not always 100% consistent. The drawings themselves are lacking in details and pretty basic. And the plot... The plot is moving ever so slooowly...

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