If you are looking for a happy book about beautiful people, this is the wrong story.
If you are looking for a narrative without emotion, without regrets, and without mistakes, this is definitely the wrong story.
This is by no means an uncomplicated tale about uncomplicated people. It is by no means sweet or light.
This story is ugly. This story is complicated. This story is emotional. This story is tragic.
In short, this story is about being awkward.
Peregrine Storke is an artist with an odd sketchbook full of pictures she’s drawn since she was a child. It is a book full of strange sketches and awkward characters, for there is no better way to hide from bullying and life than to create a world of your own. With a stroke of her pencil, she has given life to a spectacled princess, a freckle-nosed king, a candy loving troll, a two-horned unicorn, and a graceless fairy.
At nineteen, Peregrine leaves her home, her sketchbook, and awkwardness behind. But what happens when something goes wrong in the world of Awkward? Trapped inside of her complex realm with the bully she thought to leave behind, Peregrine discovers there is nothing worse than falling for your own villain.
This book was very strange. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in a way I don't really know how to recommend.
There have been many, many renditions of 'normal' people being transported to fantasy worlds - I mean, there's tons and tons of anime with that very concept. This story happens to have the creator of the world thrown into it accompanied by someone she hates - less common, but not completely unheard of. Where it really lost me was the age of the characters.
Perri is 19, her tag-along Foster is 22. The world they're sucked into was made while Perri was 'a child' (one of the last additions was made when she was 14). This made for a very confusing tone for the story. One minute they're marveling at fairy dust that tastes like watermelon, the next they're contemplating sleeping with each other. I think the main reason for the ages isn't for Perri's sake, but for Foster's. He needed to have gone to and come back from war, thus he had to be in his 20's. I couldn't find any other reason for the characters to be that old, that disconnected from the age-range of the fantasy land.
I felt like there was a lot of potential in the journey and lessons, but they lacked exploration. Perri was a little too perfect, and the supporting characters a little too pointless. It seemed like Perri hardly needed any help overcoming the obstacles, and Foster only really needed help with the final one. But even outside of the obstacles, there was little self-reflection, only sharing information between the two so that a romance could develop. There wasn't any change for the two, only insomuch as thinking of the other person, not themselves. In that respect, the secondary characters had the most growth, or at least the Princess did.
So, yeah, I liked the book as an empowerment story, reading very much like a fairytale in tone and style, but I think it is difficult to recommend it to a specific audience because of its tonal disconnect between the age of its characters and the age of its story. The characters belong in a new-adult story, while the writing style matches closer to a middle-grade book (which I think was the goal). So I guess this book is as awkward as it says? Still, for those of us old-folks who like reading YA, I think it's not too bad.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
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