The Desolations of Devil's Acre by Ramsom Riggs/Review by Liz Gatterer
The Desolations of Devil’s Acre
Ransom Riggs
Dutton Books for Young Readers
$22.99
978-0735231535
February 23, 2021
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Caul has returned.
For readers of the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series, that statement should send chills down your spine. There can be nothing worse for Peculiar-dom than his return. In this final installment of the Peculiar series. The Desolations of Devil’s Acre, the destiny of Jacob Portman and his family of Peculiars will finally be revealed.
This series of books may have been written for young adults, but it is a wonderful series for all readers. Jacob Portman is a young man from South Florida that spent most of his unremarkable life trying to figure out where he fit in. His parents think he is mentally unstable. At the recommendation of his therapist, Jacob and his father return to the small village that Grandpa Portman lived in before he emigrated to the United States half a century earlier. There, he discovers that his grandfather’s extraordinary tales—those of levitating and invisible children, a girl with mouths on both sides of her head, or one who could control bees that he kept in his stomach—were true. And the horrible creature Jacob witnessed murder his grandfather, a Hollowgast, was real as well.
Over the course of the next 5 books, we are introduced to a completely incredible world of people with very peculiar attributes, time loops, a mad man bent on destroying it all, and the wonderful Ingrams—Miss Peregrine, Miss Cuckoo, and Miss Wren—who keep everything in order like a flock of shapeshifting Mary Poppinses.
Now we have come to the end. The Desolations of Devil’s Acre. The outcome is dependent on the abilities of “The Seven.” Can they be found in time? If so, where in time? Ransom Rigg’s imagination is incredible. His writing style is similar in some ways to J.K. Rowling. Both authors tell children’s tales without being childish about it. Adults will enjoy these books as much as children.