Book Review :: The Peculiars, by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

The Peculiars by Maureen Doyle McQuerry
Published by Amulet Books
on May 1st 2012
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Steampunk, Supernatural, Young Adult
Pages: 288
Format: eBook
Find at Booktopia
Goodreads

On her 18th birthday, Lena Mattacascar decides to search for her father, who disappeared into the northern wilderness of Scree when Lena was young. Scree is inhabited by Peculiars, people whose unusual characteristics make them unacceptable to modern society. Lena wonders if her father is the source of her own extraordinary characteristics and if she, too, is Peculiar.

On the train she meets a young librarian, Jimson Quiggley, who is traveling to a town on the edge of Scree to work in the home and library of the inventor Mr. Beasley. The train is stopped by men being chased by the handsome young marshal Thomas Saltre. When Saltre learns who Lena's father is, he convinces her to spy on Mr. Beasley and the strange folk who disappear into his home, Zephyr House.

A daring escape in an aerocopter leads Lena into the wilds of Scree to fend off the many life-threatening dangers in the wilderness, and confront her deepest fears.

Last updated on 22 February 2022

This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase with one of these links, I recieve a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read the full Affiliate Policy.

Before I jump into this review, small story. I actually first discovered The Peculiars a few years ago, when I had found it as a free eBook download. I had downloaded it, even though I didn’t have a Kindle or any form of reader other than my computer, and remember opening it, and reading the first little bit. But then it was such a pain to read it on my laptop, so I stopped, keeping it in a folder somewhere on my computer to be forgotten about.

Then I was in the library the other day (okay…so the other month…my library books may be overdue) and I spotted it and it seemed super familiar. When I realised that I actually had started out before reading this book, I was excited that I had actually found a hard copy of it. So much easier than staring at my computer screen.

What is The Peculiars about?

The Peculiars, by Maureen Doyle McQuerry is set in a slightly alternative late 1800s, it tells the story of Lena, a girl of 18 who leaves her home that she shares with her mother and grandmother, and sets off towards Knob Knoster, the last town before the border into Scree.

Lena wants to find her father, who left when she was very young, and who might be able to explain her abnormally long feet and hands. Her grandmother always told her she was part goblin, and while Lena always accepted it was just a birth defect, she starts to wonder just who her father really was. In Knob Knoster, Lena meets Jimson Quiggley, a young man off to become a librarian at Mr. Beasley’s large house. Lena eventually goes to work there too, so she can save money to pay for a guide to lead her into Scree, the land where Peculiars (people with oddities about them – goblinism, wings, etc) are exiled to, where she hopes to find her father.

My thoughts on The Peculiars

I don’t normally like main characters in stories – not entirely sure why – but I really liked Lena. She was strong but cautious, her actions were only what she thought was best at the time, and her need to find out the truth is rather…well, determined. Sure she makes mistakes, and at times I felt myself thinking ‘don’t do that!’ but for someone who is on such an adventure at such a young age, that’s to be expected. I really liked the other characters too, like Jimson, and loathed others.

While I did love the plot and the descriptions of scenery and objects, I did find the end went a little too fast, and before I knew it, it was the end. And the end was a little disappointing. But I think the rest of the book made up for that. Once I started reading it (properly, not like last time), I found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it, and reading it late into the night to find out what was happening.

It’s sort of a Steampunk YA novel, which isn’t what I usually read – in fact, I don’t think I’ve really read anything Steampunk before (though perhaps Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices might come under that genre) – but I actually really enjoyed the change. I’ve given The Peculiars 4 stars.

Have you read The Peculiars? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!