The Desolations of Devil’s Acre
The Desolations of Devil’s Acre (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #6)
By: Ransom Riggs
[Fulfilling “A book with a place in the title” as part of the 2021 Fall Reading Challenge]
“The final trial is yet to come: a battle the magnitude of which we can’t yet know.”
This is the final installment in the double trilogy of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children.
I say double trilogy because many avid fans would prefer the series had stopped after The Library of Souls as was originally intended. But Riggs added another trio of books that has polarized his fans a bit.
There are those that think three was good and the books resolved enough at that point and there are those who enjoyed the extra adventures and characters incorporated into the last three.
(If you haven’t read any of the books yet, this review may contain some spoilers for you. Feel free to head over to Book One instead.)
The Library of Souls ends with the evil Caul being trapped inside the collapsed loop. But we find out in the subsequent books that there is a way he can be freed from this cage. His minions have collected the ingredients required to resurrect Caul. He is back and assembling and dispatching an advanced and horrific army. It will take everything the peculiars have to survive and destroy Caul once and for all.
We have some Marvel correlations in this book. Caul even says “I am inevitable.” And a character is referenced as the Destroyer of Worlds. It did feel a bit like Infinity War at times.
What was shocking to me to realize as I finished up book six was that all of the books take place within a span of about one year! Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was published in 2011. So if you have been reading this series as the books are put out, the journey of one year has actually taken ten years to accomplish.
For me, this was good and bad.
Bad because with so much time passing between reading each book and having read many books in between, every book took me some time to reorient myself with the peculiar world and remember where we left off, what has happened, who is who, etc. All parts are crucial.
Good because I think it allowed me to feel less critical of the second trilogy. Many feel let down by the lack of character development for some of the characters or because certain ends weren’t tied up or resolved. I think many of these things didn’t stand out to me because they weren’t fresh in my mind, the connecting threads through the books weren’t super strong for me.
That being said, I would recommend reading them all back to back (or close to it) if possible. I think that would be the most cohesive experience of the series.
This last book was filled with action and danger and quite a bit of death. I was also realizing that some of the descriptions and violence may not be good for younger readers though this is marketed as a Young Adult book. The desolations themselves include blood and bones. People lose limbs, are eaten or melted, etc. It’s definitely not as gruesome as a film adaptation would be but that is something to be aware of.
The unique, or rather peculiar, aspect of this series has always been the inclusion of the vintage photographs that Riggs incorporates into his story. So of course the finale would continue this as well. I’ve said in other reviews of this series and it still holds true— the pictures are more engaging and interesting in the first couple books but as the series goes they seem less important or exciting. Still a great feature, but seems more like an afterthought.
I am happy with how the series ended. I would agree that we don’t necessarily get all the answers we want about all the characters, but I didn’t really feel that until I read other people’s reviews and thought, ‘Oh yeah, I guess they didn’t tell us about that or they didn’t resolve that part.’
I thought the culmination of this would require a bigger sacrifice from one of the main characters. I think it would have created a more sobering yet momentous conclusion.
Also as a parent, I’m not thrilled with Riggs’ choice to detach Jacob from his parents because I feel like that’s actually something we’re seeing more of in the culture and in schools. Which is super sad. Generally, parents aren’t the bad guys and people can still live fulfilling and authentic lives as a true family unit. It worked out for Jacob to go off with his friends and leave his parents behind, but typically no one else will love you as much or as unconditionally as parents. Your parents are not expendable.
But I digress.
Overall—first impressions were very satisfactory.
This series was always a surprise gem for me. I didn’t think I would like it when I started it, but because Riggs was so creative with his world and character building and never shorted us on action, danger, and seemingly impossible scenarios, that it became a series I looked forward to reading each next book!
I’ll end with two conclusionary quotes from The Desolations of Devil’s Acre:
“I tried to imagine what I’d be doing now if none of this had happened. If I’d never gone to the island, never met Emma or the other children. But I couldn’t. I’d come too far and changed too much.”
“In the end, our real home had always been one another. And a real home was all I’d ever wanted.”
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