A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of curious photographs.
A
horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a
remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling
ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores
its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children
were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may
have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And
somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.
My Review:
I
thought the book started well enough...I liked Jacob's grandfather and
his tales from his childhood about evil monsters and strange children.
However that was as good as it gets.
Jacob is an idiot with
little personality and nothing much to make you really care about him
one way or the other. His father is a self obsessed man who is too busy
being a failed author and bird watcher to care much about what his son
does. Jacob wants to visit the island where his grandfather grew up as
therapy to help him deal with the death of his grandfather at the hands
of a monster. Jacob's lovely dad has no interest in helping him
recover-he only agrees to go to Wales when he hears about rare birds on
the island. Even after being told that the area near the children's home
may be dangerous for Jacob to visit, he prefers to watch the birds
instead of protecting his son. Nice.
The people on this island
are the usual British steriotypes that appear in all the American
written books. The men are eccentric drunken weirdos, the kids are all
mean to the poor American hero boy, the weather of course is terrible,
the accomodation is disgusting and not fit for Americans to stay in and
the community is sub standard. Of course, us Brits are all weird morons
with drinking problems unlike the perfect American visitors turning up
their nose at everything. This attitude infuriates me in novels.
Add
to this the fact that the book is slow, boring, uninteresting and
filled with photos that add nothing to the story and I decided to find
something better to do with my time.
When top Indie author Ken Mooney was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2014, he tried to keep a diary of his thoughts and treatment. This is his story. Some of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the charities and services that helped Ken through his treatments. Help these organisations. Read his story.
Available NOW on Amazon Kindle.
Ken Mooney was born in Dublin
in the middle of the 1980s; he still lives there. He holds a degree in
English Studies from TCD, which he totally uses every day during his
day-job in TV advertising...totally.
He's always been obsessed
with stories, reading, writing and playing them; that explains the
massive collection of books, comics, video games and discarded Word
documents. His writing is a combination of all the things that he's
passionate about, all the way through high-and-low-brow.
Also by the author:
So, most of you who follow my blog know about my winter trip to The
Lake District in England, UK last week and I'm finally ready to show you
the places we visited. I took so many photos that I've had to split it
into six parts to cover each day, so please bear with me! It was
freezing cold the first few days especially down by the lakes themselves
with the chill wind but the trip was mostly dry so I'm very happy!
***I have been shocked and horrified to see all the lovely places we
visited a few weeks ago under water or in the case of beautiful Pooley
Bridge, destroyed due to Storm Desmond. It has been upsetting to watch
the TV footage and know that the people there are suffering so badly. I
have decided to continue with my holiday posts to show you how beautiful
this part of the UK is and to encourage people to help either by
donation, sympathy or booking a future holiday there yourself. Areas of
beauty and history need protecting from disasters like this. My
thoughts are with everyone in Cumbria and Lancashire***
DAY SIX: LAKELAND WILDLIFE OASIS, MILNTHORPE
As soon as I saw the leaflet advertising the different animals, I just had to visit! It's only a 15 minute drive from where we were staying and it was well worth the visit.
Here are the fruit bats which just hang up above you-one almost peed on me which was quite funny! These bats are huge...I had no idea of their size and they were hanging up there like The Lost Boys!
There were some beautiful tropical birds!
Here are Degu, a form of rat. Very cute guys!
These cute furry things are called Mara.
Here are the gorgeous meercats! I could watch these adorable guys all day!
And the beautiful snow leopard!
Sadly, my camera battery died at this point so I couldn't photograph the lemurs or red squirrels and a few other animals-which is why I've now invested in a new camera in the Amazon Black Friday sales. Next year I hope to go back to the Lake District and get better photos of the wildlife places and see a few different lakes. I want to spend my money there to help get the area back on it's financial feet after the flooding as I loved it there so much. Thankfully, none of the animals at this park were harmed in the flooding. You can follow the park on Facebook.
So, most of you who follow my blog know about my winter trip to The
Lake District in England, UK last week and I'm finally ready to show you
the places we visited. I took so many photos that I've had to split it
into six parts to cover each day, so please bear with me! It was
freezing cold the first few days especially down by the lakes themselves
with the chill wind but the trip was mostly dry so I'm very happy!
***I have been shocked and horrified to see all the lovely places we
visited a few weeks ago under water or in the case of beautiful Pooley
Bridge, destroyed due to Storm Desmond. It has been upsetting to watch
the TV footage and know that the people there are suffering so badly. I
have decided to continue with my holiday posts to show you how beautiful
this part of the UK is and to encourage people to help either by
donation, sympathy or booking a future holiday there yourself. Areas of
beauty and history need protecting from disasters like this. My
thoughts are with everyone in Cumbria and Lancashire***
DAY FIVE: DERWENT WATER
It was back to the Lakes today, taking a trip past Windermere, Ambleside, Grassmere, Thirlmere, Keswick, Ashness Bridge, Derwent Water, Bassenthwaite and Cockermouth. A long trip but the weather was good again and it was quite mild now that the cold snap is gone.
This was our first proper stop at the beautiful Thirlmere.
<
We went through Keswick which was quite pretty, but didn't stop as we were in search of the steep hill leading to the lookout point. We found the turn off easily and found the stunning Ashness Bridge, one of the most popular bridges for photographers in the Lake District. The hill is steep and it's difficult to stop at but well worth it.
We continued up the hill to a car park for lunch and enjoyed the wonderful view of Derwent Water from Surprise View. Quincy and Otis weren't keen to get close to the edge!
Will Grayson meets Will
Grayson. One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two
strangers are about to cross paths. From that moment on, their world
will collide and Iives intertwine.
It's not that far from
Evanston to Naperville, but Chiacago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will
Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them
both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their
lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions. With a
push from friends new and old - including the massive, and massively
fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur
extraordinaire - Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic
turns-of-heart and the epic production of history's most awesome high
school musical.
My Review:
I'm
so glad that I didn't spend extra money getting this on paperback when I
had the chance as I really didn't enjoy it at all. This is the second
book by the author that I've read and it was a massive let down. The
idea of two people with the same name meeting sounds mildly interesting
in theory but it didn't work on any level for me.
Will Grayson #1
is a moron. He hangs out with people he doesn't like and is forever
bitching about how horrible they are and how he hates spending time with
them. He has no personality, he is not interesting in any way and I
don't like him. He is just there to be used by Tiny. His 'romance' with Jane is a joke seeing that the characters have nothing in common, no chemistry or attraction and don't even seem to LIKE each other or have anything to say to each other! It was quite pathetic and didn't work at all and felt like a waste of time.t seems and that
got boring very quickly. What is really the point of Will? Nothing that I
could see.
Will Grayson #2 is a rude, obnoxious piece of human
filth who treats his poor mother like dirt for no real reason that I can
see. He is a self obsessed cretin with no redeeming features who thinks
the world owes him a living and that he can treat people whatever way
he wants. He is horrible and I found myself hoping that he might get hit
by a bus at some point but no such luck. I didn't even want to read the
chapters that he stars in because he got on my nerves so badly.
And
then we have Tiny. The so called star of the book and the worst of the
lot. This was the worst character of the lot. He is a self obsessed,
loudmouthed, self centered, moronic show off who has to be the centre of
attention. He is all 'Me Me Me' and has no interest in his friends
other than what part he can make them play in the latest drama that he
decides to have. For example, when he loudly delares in class to Will
that he is in love, everyone assumes he loves Will, who is then
ridiculed all day about it and is humiliated. But does Tiny try to set
things right? NO he revels in the extra attention he gets and Will's
feelings don't matter. Who needs 'friends' like this? The fact that the
book was obviously going to centre around more of Tiny's dramas meant it
was a pretty easy decision to stop reading.
There is nothing
worse than having a dreadful character that wrecks the story. Actually, I
revise that statement. This was worse because every character was
dreadful and there seemed to be no story except these horrible idiots
making each other's lives even more miserable than they already are. I
hated everything about this book and I never even want to think about it
again.
