A Map of Days by Ransom Riggs
Having defeated the monstrous threat that nearly destroyed the peculiar world, Jacob Portman is back where his story began, in Florida. Except now Miss Peregrine, Emma, and their peculiar friends are with him, and doing their best to blend in. But carefree days of beach visits and normalling lessons are soon interrupted by a discovery—a subterranean bunker that belonged to Jacob’s grandfather, Abe.
Clues to Abe’s double-life as a peculiar operative start to emerge, secrets long hidden in plain sight. And Jacob begins to learn about the dangerous legacy he has inherited—truths that were part of him long before he walked into Miss Peregrine’s time loop.
Now, the stakes are higher than ever as Jacob and his friends are thrust into the untamed landscape of American peculiardom—a world with few ymbrynes, or rules—that none of them understand. New wonders, and dangers, await in this brilliant next chapter for Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children.
I loved the original three books in the Miss Peregrin’s Home for Peculiar Children series so I was apprehensive when I heard the series was continuing on. I’m always afraid that some things are better off left where they are, rather than continuing to try to create more story in order to continue to move forward and sell more books.
As a result, there’s been quite a gap in time since I finished Library of Souls. Enough time for books 4 and 5 to come out in the series. So starting A Map of Days, I realized I’d forgotten quite a bit about the earlier books. Much of the finer plot points and certainly what all of the kids’ peculiarities were. I wish this book had come with an appendix to help you get back up to speed, but alas, I had to make do with contextual clues. Luckily, the story does a good enough job situating you in the story that, after a little patience, I got it figured out. Enough to start sinking back into the story again at least. Though if you, like me, are returning to the series after a long absence, I would probably do a reread first.
Perhaps owning to a pandemic year that has all stuck at home, I find I’ve been really enjoying books set in own backyard, in America, the country I know best of all. As much as it is to escape to exotic locales and worlds, there’s something special about seeing the country you know in the pages of a book. Particularly a part of the book that is intimately familiar to the author (Ransom Riggs spent some of his life in Florida). And of course, it’s always a treat to see a part of the US that’s not commonly depicted in books and film (Florida that’s not Miami and the rural south).
In contrast to other series I’ve read where the books extended beyond the author’s original pitched and sold vision e.g. was a trilogy and now it’s 4, 5, or 6 books, there feels like enough new story here to keep the story going without it feeling boring or tiresome. This book still had all the quirky fun, magic, and inventiveness I’ve come to associate with this series. I also enjoyed how different Peculiar America is from Peculiar Europe and I look forward to exploring more of that contrast and how the kids have to learn to navigate a world that’s unlike anything they’ve ever known – for both Jacob and the original Miss Peregrine’s crew. I’m excited to see these characters continue to grow up and struggle to find their place in the world as young adults, not children. And I’m hoping the new books might inspire a film or tv series reboot that does the books more justice than they got the first time around.
