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Oryx May 14th, 2014 8:00 PM

[BOOK 1 BEGUN] Book Club
 
Culture and Media Book Club

Welcome to C&M's Book Club! Here you will find fun and hopefully stimulating conversation on books for everyone who cares to join. It's easy and fast to join, even if you're jumping in mid-book! Here's a quick start for those jumping in mid-book:

» Acquire the book.
» Check out the chapter summaries in this first post - I'll be sure to either find some online or write some up so those behind can at least get the idea of what's happening plot-wise.
» Read the current chapter and discuss! You're more than welcome to do it the long way by reading everything we've already read, but this way you don't have to do a ton of work just to participate.
Current Book/Chapter

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Chapters 1 and 2

Summary of past chapters:

Prologue

Spoiler:
The book begins by describing the protagonist's grandfather, Abraham Portman. Jacob grew up listening to his stories, of the wars he fought in and the childhood he led. The stories of his childhood were completely fantastic, complete with a bird that protected him from monsters on an island with other children that had special powers, including levitation, super-strength, and two mouths. One day, after being mocked at school for believing in these stories, he told his grandfather that he no longer believed and it was immediately dropped. His father later explained that Grandfather Portman's real childhood was incredibly sad, and that was why he made up the stories - he was the only member of his family that escaped Poland during World War II, at 12, while the rest of his family died and he stayed on an island for Jewish children that escaped.


Chapter 1

Spoiler:
The chapter opens on Jacob working the job that he's trying to get fired from, at Smart Aid. He can't get fired, however, because he is set to inherit a large chunk of the company as his family owns it; he also can't quit because it's family tradition to work at Smart Aid before inheriting it. While screwing up his job, he gets a phone call from his grandfather, who is getting old and paranoid. He's off his medication and is ranting about the monsters from his childhood chasing him, trying to find the key to his gun cabinet that had been long hidden by Jacob's father. Jacob agrees to leave work and see him, along with his friend Ricky.

When they arrive at Grandfather Portman's house, the entire thing is a mess and the man himself is missing; the only clues are a torn open screen door and a lit flashlight in the backyard. Jacob takes the flashlight and moves into the woods behind his grandfather's house, following a hunch and eventually finding him bloodied with massive cuts in his stomach. With his dying breath, his grandfather makes him promise to "go to the island" and leaves him a cryptic code - "Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old man’s grave. September third, 1940. Emerson—the letter. Tell them what happened, Yakob." He passes and Jacob feels the presence of something else in the woods - he swings the flashlight around and catches a glimpse of what looks like one of the monsters from his grandfather's stories, with tentacles spewing from its mouth and inky black eyes. He faints as Ricky arrives.


Chapter 2

Spoiler:
Jacob, believing that his grandfather was killed by the very real monsters of his childhood, blames himself for not believing and causing his death. He refuses to sleep in rooms with windows for months, and wakes up nightly screaming. He pushes away Ricky, his only friend, who believes as the police do that his grandfather was killed by a pack of feral dogs. After visiting a psychiatrist, he is finally given a reason for seeing the monsters - an acute stress reaction. He is convinced of the truth of this diagnosis, but still has the nightmares and fears that medication couldn't kill.

He begins to research what the last words of his grandfather mean, although he partially suspects that they mean nothing - first he looks for people named Emerson in his grandpa's retirement community, then the letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, both dead ends. He helps go through his grandfather's old things in his house and agrees to throw out the old pictures of the children with 'special powers', which he sees as cheap photo manipulation tricks now. His parents throw him a "surprise" 16th birthday party, where he receives a gift found by his aunt in his grandfather's house - a book of poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson, with a written dedication inside it to Jacob. "To Jacob Magellan Portman, and the worlds he has yet to discover -" As he holds it, a letter drops out that speaks about the island, the children still there and the headmistress, Alma LeFay Peregrine. Jacob convinces his parents to let him visit the island with his father, in the UK, and they leave at the start of summer.

acatfrommars May 14th, 2014 8:19 PM

Oooh, The Princess Bride! I've seen the movie multiple times but never read the book; that would be a good choice. Alanna: The First Adventure sounds really good as well, I'm not sure which one I want! Ultimately, I've never read any of those books so I'm fine with whichever one wins. ^^

YungKnowledge May 14th, 2014 8:24 PM

Is It bad that I want re-read Alanna The First Adventure? :)

The Void May 15th, 2014 4:45 AM

Alanna: The First Adventure. I miss good adventure stories; most of the books I've read were either dark or romance-themed.

Logan May 15th, 2014 12:09 PM

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is my favourite book of all-time. Easily takes my vote.

Ryoutarou May 15th, 2014 1:26 PM

The Princess Bride is a pretty awesome book, but one that I've already read. I've heard some great things about Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children so I'm definitely voting for that one. (plus, semi-spooky books are always good)

Nick May 15th, 2014 1:30 PM

First choice: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children
If not: Alanna: The First Adventure.

antemortem May 15th, 2014 1:31 PM

I've also heard good things about Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children so my vote is for that one.

lozzop May 15th, 2014 1:50 PM

Ooh Alanna: The First Adventure all the way! :D

Cherrim May 15th, 2014 1:58 PM

I'm gonna vote Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children since I've been meaning to read that for a really long time anyway! All of these seem pretty interesting though.

Altairis May 15th, 2014 5:01 PM

Alanna! That one sounds really interesting. Although I've only read the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I think any of them would be good!

Nathan May 15th, 2014 5:23 PM

My vote goes to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Lozz May 15th, 2014 7:06 PM

Obviously my vote would be for "Into Thin Air"... but since that isn't an option; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, because I've read all the others.

Judge Mandolore Shepard May 16th, 2014 5:55 AM

I admit that I am really undecided on which one to vote for since I have not read any of those four books. I have heard of the movie version of A Princess Bride, but I have not heard much of the other three at all.

Omicron May 16th, 2014 9:32 PM

My vote goes for Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children.

I want to reread The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time too, so I wouldn't mind it at all. In fact, it isn't getting enough love here. Believe me guys, it is a wonderful book. One of my all time favorites. It is a must read.

Oryx May 22nd, 2014 3:54 PM

Yay! Looks like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children has won! I'm so excited, I've never read it before!

If you can't check the book out of a library or buy it yourself, PM me and I'll hook you up. :) Since there are eleven chapters, how about we start with the first two for this week? Finish it at your own pace (I don't have anything real to do for the next few days so I'll probably be done fairly fast haha) and then we can discuss!

acatfrommars May 22nd, 2014 6:13 PM

Sounds fun, I'll go ahead and start reading after I finish The Gunslinger! ^^

Oryx May 23rd, 2014 10:26 AM

As promised, I finished reading the first two chapters really quick because I can already tell this is going to be a good read and updated the first post with the summaries!

Thoughts:

I can't figure out yet whether this is going to be a fantasy novel or a novel about WWII. I don't want to read ahead because I want to be able to speculate, but the book is definitely doing a good job or putting us in the confusion in Jacob's head by wavering between "it's real" "it's not real" "it's real" over and over. It's also tapping into the tradition of fairy tales in a world that doesn't believe - kids that are told the stories, don't believe them, and then realize as an adult that they're real. I'll be interested to see if it's invoking that tradition to follow it or subvert it.

The other thing that I found interesting was the implication already that Jacob is going to be out of contact on this island with the outside world - there's a narrative theory of the "green world", the world where children leave their parents and deal with conflict, coming out of it adults ready to live their own lives. I suspect that, although his father is coming with him, we won't be seeing too much of him in the story.

Altairis May 31st, 2014 8:21 PM

Sorry it took a while! I started and finished the first two chapters today :)

The version I read online included the pictures - not sure if this was in all versions - and some of them definitely looked a little creepy, which I think added to the story quite a bit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oryx (Post 8265077)
It's also tapping into the tradition of fairy tales in a world that doesn't believe - kids that are told the stories, don't believe them, and then realize as an adult that they're real. I'll be interested to see if it's invoking that tradition to follow it or subvert it.

I always like it when books use this theme, because when kids reach the age of not believing anymore they usually look back and think, "Yeah, there's no WAY I believed those were true when I was little." So it's always great to have them go back.

Nick June 1st, 2014 3:00 PM

Oh no! I had no idea we started already.
I'll get the book next time I go to Target, which should probably be either tonight or tomorrow and catch up and maybe keep going depending on how good it gets!!

Nick June 3rd, 2014 9:42 PM

Just finished reading the prologue and wondered how many pages were in chapter 1. There isn't a table of contents in the physical book, at least, so I decided that I would compile my own table of contents for my own reference. Figured I would post this here.

Prologue: 12 - 22
Chapter 1: 24 - 37
Chapter 2: 39 - 68
Chapter 3: 70 - 85
Chapter 4: 87 - 103
Chapter 5: 105 - 141
Chapter 6: 143 - 181
Chapter 7: 183 - 206
Chapter 8: 208 - 245
Chapter 9: 247 - 268
Chapter 10: 270 - 333
Chapter 11: 335 - 352
Photograph credits: 345 - 355
Acknowledgements: 356
Interview: 357 - 365
Hollow City preview: 373 - 382

Each page can contain a maximum of 32 lines of text.


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