Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Book Review

I don't normally write reviews, but I also don't normally have such confusing feelings about a book.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs took me two days to complete. So I must have enjoyed it. I must have been entertained. Indeed, I feel that I was. But each time I picked it up, my head hurt a little bit. 

The story starts off normal enough with plenty of room to grow. Since it's the beginning of the book, and every book is different, I expect the plot to pick up as I got further in. In my opinion, I don't believe it did much. The middle was faster and more exciting, but I felt the beginning and even the end really dragged. 

*Spoiler,* but I didn't know this was going to be a time travel book. Which I didn't have an issue with, it just surprised me. I also didn't know this would be a book with magical birds, named an unpronounceable name. AGH. 

There were times where I waited for more information to be shared or revealed. I found this quite confusing, like pieces of important information were being left out of the story. Confusing things would happen, and Miss Peregrine would go on to explain something else entirely to Jacob, so I had trouble keeping up with the story. 

I didn't find many of the characters to be particularly likable. We didn't get the chance to know many of the peculiar uses very well. I don't like Miss Peregrine at all. Emma annoys me, Jacob's father's an ass, and Jacob is boring and sort of one dimensional. 

I enjoyed the book, though it was more plot driven than I tend to read, so hopefully there's character growth to be seen in Hollow City and Library of Souls. I like the premise a lot, but unfortunately the plot is kind of boring to me. 

I'm struggling to understand how I gave this a four star rating. Why did I read it so fast? Did I actually enjoy it? Am I just talking about the bad things right now?, leaving out all I liked about the book? 

I'd definitely give this book more of a three-and-a-half star rating. Again, I'm confused why it amused me so. 

I Need A Break

I need a break. 

I have been working hard for school nonstop since spring break ended. Exams are coming up, and things are only going to get harder before teachers pass out exam reviews. I'm still learning in most of my classes, an alarming but true fact. In just a few short weeks, my knowledge on this new and old information will be tested. 

My brother's graduation party is up north at our cottage this weekend. I'm excited for the party, but I'm mostly looking forward to relaxing. It's been better now that APUSH is over, but I still can't claim that I'm totally relaxed. Soon, though. It'll be summer before I know it, and I can spend warm days at the cottage and put with friends and reading in my back yard. 

In conclusion to this very short post, life is hard and stressful, and I need a break from it. I hope this weekend is every bit as cathartic as I need it to be before I dive head first into final exams. 

Inspiration at World Championships

This past week, I had the amazing opportunity to attend FIRST Robotics Competition's World Championships with my robotics team. For some, this was a chance to observe the best high school-made robots in the world. For all, it was a time to learn and experience all that FIRST had to offer. For me, it was the experience I had been dreaming of to bond with my fellow robotics team.

The things we do at robotics are not simple. In 6 weeks, we are expected to build a fully functional robot for a specific task. But in addition to the mechanical aspect of the team, we have to maintain a group that takes a lot of planning to run. My closest friends on the team are probably those I've worked with the most: the marketing team. Together, we help manage--keeping us hyped and ready for competitions while making us look like a cohesive team.

Like any other sport or extracurricular, friendships are forged through the experiences with each other. The more time you spend with these people, the more you come to enjoy their presence. I realized this early in competition season last year. While at a regional competition my freshman year, I felt a bit of what the seniors felt in their four years together--utter adoration for each other and the program.

Being at worlds gave me a similar, but more powerful, feeling. The juniors and seniors above me and freshman below me have always been amazing friends. But until our time together this past week, I had not truly observed the familial bond that's been keeping me a part of FIRST robotics.

I am not a technical person. I've learned many things in my time on the robotics team, and I hope to learn many more throughout the rest of high school. But being on the team is an opportunity for me to work in business type relations with people to manage the team. I can respect how everyone has found his or her niche on the team while never excluding others. Hopefully, as my class gets older, the bonds between the students grow deeper and even more loving and compassionate. Hopefully by senior year, we can inspire incoming freshmen the way that the seniors inspired me.

I think it's really important to get involved with something and find your niche. I never would have envisioned myself on the robotics team if it weren't for the passion of the upperclassmen who looked like they were having the time of their lives building and making things. But here I am now, and here is my passion. Even if my passion is just the love within the team, the passion exists, and it will hold me to them until senior year.