Invisible boys and floating girls? This is beginning to sound like a fantasy that could only begin in a dream, but for Jacob, this dream becomes reality. A reality that is a little more peculiar than ours.

“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is a tale that leads us through a whirlwind of adventure about Jacob, your average teenage boy; attending school, seeing his friends, and having an unbreakable bond with his grandfather. Jacob’s grandfather describes tales of children with rare peculiar powers that he knew growing up.

When those remarkable stories ended along with his grandfather’s life, Jacob’s mind is left with unanswered questions; the biggest one relating to the main character of those stories: “Who is Miss Peregrine?”

This book definitely took me on a roller coaster of emotions. Between fits of intensity, joy, anger and frustration of wanting more, let’s just say I stayed up way past my bedtime for quite a few nights. It had me on the edge of my seat and stay I was immediately drawn to the relationship between Jacob and his grandfather.

The author, Ransom Riggs, goes into immense detail about the grandfather’s time spent at the house full of peculiar children.

Riggs goes even further into describing the idiosyncrasies among children along with providing pictures of their appearance. The books gives you the feeling of looking at an old hospital photo album with all the “freaks” they have seen and documented.

The relationship between Jacob and the other characters is absolutely phenomenal, by allowing us inside of his thoughts on every encounter of his new peculiar friends.

This critically acclaimed writer helps us step inside Jacob’s world by writing in the first person so we are able to see what he sees, feel what he feels and be just as immersed as he is discovering the unimaginable of this dream-like reality.

You may be taking a quick glance at the cover art for the book or a potential synopsis and think, “where have I seen this sort of writing before?”

Dark, mysterious and a gripping “series of unfortunate events”. Sound familiar? Lemony Snicket and Riggs are both surreal yet very peculiar in their own ways.

Notably, the two authors both dabble in writing stories with a grim undertone, and a side of humor to complement it. These two authors bounce off each other’s own writing styles to create this genre of gloom into something we can all look back to and reminisce on.

However, how Riggs and Snicket go about unfolding their melancholic wonder land is seen in their very distinctive style of narration.

Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” always rounds out with the children escaping the villain, but they still know that misfortune lies ahead.

With Rigg’s work in “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” he draws on the misfortune happening sooner than later, but he always leaves you wanting more, all while you have the feeling that something big and dark is coming.

The question isn’t “will something happen,” it’s “when.” Snicket and Riggs’ work both provide loose ends that weren’t tied up until the book proceeding it is written.

Each author providing a few pages of the beginning of the next book which only leads us to ask more questions and more loose ends left hanging, a trope often seen in other media outlets like our favorite shows “Game of Thrones” and my personal favorite “Stranger Things” (seriously, what happened to eleven?).

The critically acclaimed book was released into a movie on Sept. 30, where we were able to see our favorite peculiar children come to life, and we finally got to see the mysterious Miss Peregrine, played by Eva Green. The special effects and graphics are second to none as we are lead through our favorite adventures a second time.  The movie accomplished fantastic work with recreating our favorite characters.

The wardrobe of the characters seems relatively close to the author’s creation which brought me back to thinking about the character’s appearances. There are cameos throughout the movie including Tim Burton and the author  Riggs, which added a little surprise to fans of the book and movie alike. As with anything good, critiques must follow.

The villain in the movie did not do justice to the diabolical one we see in the book. He’s menacing and truthfully sounds terrifying in the literature. Without revealing some of the crucial and important details, the movie’s accuracy to the books was a little subpar, but it still captured the audience’s attention and made them want more.

The ending of the movie didn’t do the book justice. Once again, I hate spoilers so I won’t tell you anything. The finale in the book ends in quite a large, grandiose way, where as the movie makes it seem quite childish and “cheesy.” If you have a love of all things strange and remarkable, I would consider checking out this fun-for-the-whole-family film.

Peculiarities are a rarity to come by, so appreciate them as they come.

Breanna Roen is an opinion writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]