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kaysutcliff-michaelis · 13 days ago

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Miss Peregrine book 6 The Desolations of Devil's Acre rant because I wrote this essay on Goodreads so why not post it here too

Prepare for a very lengthy and ranty review full of spoilers!

For starters, The Desolations of Devil's Acre has a huge pacing problem. Some chapters feel eternal and have things happening left and right, while others are extremely short and don't have a lot going on for them. I read the series as part of a read along, so I was taking notes and making summaries for each chapter, and some summaries are three or four times the size of others. It can happen, but alongside the many other issues I will list it feels like not much editing was done. It also bothers me than The Conference of the Birds is way shorter compared to books 4 and 6. Series tend to get longer as they go, and of course events need to happen in an order, but it looks like Ransom Riggs left too open plots and details for the last book and couldn't manage them properly.

The biggest problem I have with this book is the number of characters and plot points that don't get revisited:

Who is Sophie? Why does she make the calls? Who is Penny (as in, is he really the girl's dad, and if he is why does he know about the prophecy?)? Why is Penny with her and not a light eater? Penny is said to have lost his "something old and special" in page 378, does he recover it? What did he lose exactly and how?

Was Klaus' wife really turned into suul? What could he gain by lying about the Expulsatator and losing his beloved great-great-uncle's clock? Why did Perplexus steal the femur in the first place and why has Millard never mentioned that he steals things? How did Millard get the suul and the femur for Klaus? And how did Caul obtain so much suul for the ambro addicts?

WHERE IS THE HOLLOW THAT WAS TAKEN TO THE BATTLING CAGE IN PAGE 291 OF THE CONFERENCE OF BIRDS?

What happened with Lilly? Is she safe? Do they ever see her again?

Did the diviners stay in Devil's Acre after the loop assembly? If yes, where were they during the final battle? Didn't they see anything? If no, why and did they even make it alive to Portal?

Why does Leo suddenly not care about anything that happens with the other Americans and the ymbrynnes? Isn't he worried that they will all get a reset without him, attack him and take him outside his loop to age forward? Doesn't he want answers about what happened to his goddaughter? - How come the children got attacked and chased down the street multiple times for having their clocks reset but there is only one assassination attempt towards Noor and Jacob and none towards the ymbrynes (not counting Miss Babax) despite all these ymbryne-hating-peculiars being told by Caul to kill them all? How come that Sharon, who's going to anti-ymbryne political meetings and even trying to convince Jacob to join their side, is still a relevant character that follows the ymbrynnes' instructions to the point of being instrumental in their plans and their wards' plans?

Why does no one mourn Victor anymore? Why doesn't he even get a proper mention at the very end when they return to Cairnholm?

Where is Mother Dust during the story and why does she never get mentioned when talking about healers and bone menders?

What happened with Miss Hawksbill and her loop?

What happened with the mountains of normals killed by Caul in London? How did the normals explain it? Was it on the news around the world? Did people get worried about the apocalypse coming? How do the ymbrynes expect to start a "peculiars are good" campaign right after that happened and they get their cute happy ending while normals have died and they don't even know how or why?

Why can't Caul enter the water and why is this relevant for two seconds and never again? What happened exactly after Sebby fell?

What happened with Horatio? Will he be allowed to stay in Devil's Acre? What even is the meaning of his existence anymore? How did he get to be Caul's right hand, how does he feel about it and how did H get his hands on such an important hollowgast? -Why does Bentham help Jacob and Perplexus? How do they know they can trust him and that he isn't looking for a way to strengthen Caul or collapse their loop for real?

WHAT HAPPENED WITH JULIUS AND HORACE? One second they were inseparable and the next we get a generic happy ending with no mention whatsoever of their relationship, if Horace wants Julius to go to Cairnholn with their or not, JULIUS DOESN'T HAVE AN YMBRYNE ANYMORE, Miss Petrel is dead! So why can Noor join them (and Miss P tells Horace specifically to get her a seat on the table) but this welcome isn't extended to Horace's boyfriend?

And this is old tea by now but I cannot forget about it: WHO WAS THE WEIRD MAN IN CAUL'S TOWER? Probably there are many more that I don't remember or didn't consider relevant when reading them.

Then we have these inconsistencies that took me out of the story. I don't know if they are only present in my edition (ISBN 9780241320945) or if they are everywhere, but at the beginning of chapter 12, page 225, it says "Not all of us had come. (…) Horace was clearly exhausted by the events of the day but also said our cause would be better served by him taking a sleeping dram and going to bed, in the hopes that he might have some useful prophetic dreams". A few pages later, when the children are talking to the ymbrynes, you find this line ""And if he succeeds?" asked Horace." Horace should be at Ditch House, did I misunderstand something? Apparently I didn't, because in chapter 13 the kids go back to Ditch House, and page 245 says "Horace was the last to find out. He'd been sitting in bed in a half-sleep trance, moaning and whispering to himself, and when we woke him out of it he leapt up (…) He stopped suddenly, blinking at all of us. "Hullo, what are you all doing in my bedroom?"". Now, this may just be Horace sleepwalking to the meeting and back without anyone noticing that he shouldn't be there or shouldn't be sleeping at home, but first, it would be an extremely weird way to go about it, and second, it happens again with a different character later on. Chapter 18, page 385, "We said a hurried goodbye and split (…) and Addison in search of grimbears." Addison isn't going with Emma, Noor, Horatio, Sharon and Jacob, he is going to search for grimbears. But then, in page 390, when they are rushing on Sharon's boat it says "We whipped around the bends in the canal so quickly the world blurred. On my left, Emma clenched her jaw and went pale. Addison hid himself under his seat." Addison wasn't there? And he isn't mentioned again in any of the scenes that follow, certainly not inside the cruise ship or during the daring escape with the hollowgasts. I'm surprised that if the book was read as many times as it should have before being giving the go to be printed no one noticed these.

Similarly to the last section, I feel like there are some inconsistencies with Millard's and Addison's behaviour, and interestingly enough they happen very close to the aforementioned discrepancies, so did this chapters not get edited at all? Did they get less attention in favour of other parts of the book? So when Millard and Klaus are having a screaming match in the middle of the street that the home guard cannot hear for whatever reason, why is Millard so angry and so sure that Klaus is keeping the Expulsatator? What's his evidence and why isn't he trying to reason and cozy up to Klaus anymore? Maybe it's just me, but I thought Millard was a more reasonable character, I would have expected these suspicions and bad character from Enoch. Then later on, when Sophie tells the group about how Penny may sleep forever, Enoch and Addison act very ignorant and mean saying that goddamn Pensevus from the Tale of Pensevus is just a toy, who cares that he's dead? WHO CARES THAT PENSEVUS IS GONE, YOU SAY? I expect that attitude from Enoch, but from Addison?? He has his bad moments but he has always given me the impression of being very loyal to the ymbrynes and very proud of peculiardom. The very entrance to Miss Wren's menagerie loop is part of the Tales of the Peculiar!!! So I thought he would care about Pensevus and his intel, at the very least because of what the doll means to peculiar culture or because his dear Miss Wren considers the tale and Pensevus important, or at most be indifferent. BUT FOR HIM TO SAY THAT PENNY IS JUST A STUPID TOY! I won't stand for the doll slander. How would you feel if I said "who cares about the stupid dog from that tale about the Menagerie?", Addison???? And even if you want to vouch for Enoch, remember when the wights found their location in Hollow City because he used his power to animate a toy soldier to cheer up the little girl in the bathtub? Where is that Enoch and why is he being so malicious towards Sophie?

Going back to "How come the children got attacked and chased down the street multiple times for having their clocks reset but there is only one assassination attempt towards Noor and Jacob and none towards the ymbrynes (not counting Miss Babax) despite all these ymbryne-hating-peculiars being told by Caul to kill them all?", it reads like the characters don't feel like they are in danger because the author knows they aren't in danger. It's very scary to see how close Noor was to getting killed right after the assembly and then nothing happens. The children keep escaping the house and going places alone without informing anyone when an assassin could be waiting round the corner! But nothing happens and they act like they know nothing will happen, not even the Ditch dwellers care about them anymore! And Sharon? Going to underground meetings and being disappointed because Jacob stood him up? I kept waiting for him to do something or even betray the ymbrynes, but nothing came out from that either! It doesn't make any sense. These are plot point that could have been removed from a draft and it would have been perfectly fine, no one would have missed them and you have extra pages for the climax. But adding them and then not acting upon them does makes the book worse.

This one is also old news but it has been nagging me since the day I read it. In A Map of Days, at the end, Jacob talks about the Americans saying things like "It seems amazing to me now, but I had no way of knowing who the others were. That was probably for the best, because if I'd known their reputations, I might've been too intimidated to think straight" or "Wreck hated to be photographed, but one day I would see a blurred snapshot of him posing much as he sat before me now." These sentences spoiling that Jacob will live to learn their reputations or see the snapshot aside, back when I read this I was led to believe Angelica, Wreck and Dogface would become relevant somehow. Maybe Jacob would tour the States killing hollows and would have skirmishes with them. Maybe the Americans would really be the new enemy. Mind you, these lines appear at the very end of book 4 and Jacob doesn't really speak from the future looking into the past like he did there, so I thought they meant something, but no! :D We even get some weird camaraderie, some looks here and there between Wreck and Jacob, the latter very interested in the peculiarity of the former, but nothing happens. Dogface scams Bronwyn out of money, they come to the Acre in Leo's name, they stay in the Acre, they help during the fight, they get their loops reset, that's it! These characters could not exist at all and it wouldn't be a problem. You can make Leo the big bad American guy with unnamed goons, it wouldn't change a thing, Leo isn't even so bad and scary and relevant in this book anyway.

And the prophecy, I almost forgot about it! It was this big mysterious thing with all the answers in book 5, but in this book it is a joke! No one cares about it, they stop looking at it for answers, and worse of all the "Seven MAY seal the door" meaning "oh, actually we just need one, seven may do it but they may not as well because six of them are fail-safes". WHAT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THAT LOGIC? It's like the process of writing the prophecy and writing the plot were completely separate but set in stone so nonsense had to be written to accommodate for them both! And "we didn't tell you you were fail-safes and it is written that way because you wouldn't have come", what stops them from leaving after being told?? You might as well not have said it at all! But of course it had to be done because four out of the seven were dead. That was a choice that the author had to make, remember, he could have written it all differently. But no, adhering to the aspect of possibility of the modal may was extremely necessary!

I don't want to say this book is worse than A Map of Days because that roadtrip à la Final Fantasy XV is a thing and I hate it, but it doesn't have many redeeming qualities and that pains me. I loved The Conference of the Birds and Library of Souls, so I had impossible expectations of this book, but even if they had been non-existent I would have been disappointed, because the ending is boring, anticlimactic, rushed and repetitive. The Library loop collapsing after the fight back and forth again with Caul in the spirit pool? Really? It's like I'm reading Library of Souls again. But it's worse because it could have happened a thousand other ways and not have been followed by another ending with Jacob in his house with another awkward scene with his parents. Imagine if the final battle had been outside his grandfather's house while they retrieve the protocol book. Things ending where they started. It also annoys me that it was more or less the same characters inside the Library with him, Caul and Noor as last time. Even Bentham is there again! It's so unoriginal. All of Miss P's wards fighting Caul in Florida would have been a treat. Not a fan of Jacob turning into a hollow either. The entire time it took me to read the book I expected the hollow from the battling cage to be relevant again. For Jacob to get it as a last resort and use it to defeat Caul, some sort of irony after all his improved hollows had been killed. But no! Ransom Riggs forgot that this hollow existed, because into the cage it goes and it never gets mentioned again! The Panloopticon runs on batteries now so we don't care about the hollow anymore. AND THE EXPULSATATOR? THE DEUS EX MACHINA OF THE CENTURY? This book is full of those, even two instances of Emma receiving an item from another character right before she leaves Devil's Acre that becomes the thing that will save them from certain death, but the Expulsatator being used AGAIN when a loop (Abaton, on top of that) is collapsing AGAIN at the very end of a book AGAIN without Noor and Jacob knowing about it AGAIN? Give me a break.

Overall, The Desolations of Devil's Acre reads like chapters written out of order that were then put together and no one bothered reading through the resulting volume to make sure it made sense. It also feels like the author doesn't keep notes or bothered re-reading his previous books before/during the writing of the sixth one due to the amount of forgotten characters and plots, even from the very end of the fifth book, published less than two years prior.

I'm probably forgetting something, but I have been writing this review for HOURS now. Thank you very much if you have reached this point and let me know what you think or if you found some plot issues that I didn't!

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