Book #516 – Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Continuing in the Southeast United States, I picked the book based in Florida. Originally published in 2004, Darkly Dreaming Dexter was the first of the Dexter series. It spanned 8 books, that were being published just slightly ahead of the television series (at least until that last book). If you pick up the book series after watching the television series, be prepared for a few changes. (That’s pretty typical though, isn’t it?)

I watched the series first, at least the first few seasons. My husband is currently watching the entire series for the second time because it popped back on Netflix. So, of course, certain scenes in the book felt like deja vu, as the book covers the first season of the show. In an interesting twist, the show and the books ended up being simultaneously written after about the 3rd season, with the last book being published about 2 years after the show’s conclusion. I’m actually interested to see how far they diverge in plotlines.

Book #37 – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

The first book of a most peculiar series, this book was originally published in 2011. The story follows Jacob’s travel to a small Welsh island to reconcile his grandfather’s past with the stories he heard as a child. I chose it for this month’s reading for a couple reasons. The first was American Horror Story: Freak Show, the second was the monsters that didn’t show up until well into the book. (Ok, in all honesty, it’s because this book appeared on almost every “Halloween Reads” book list I came across, but AHS definitely helped in my decision making).

Probably the coolest thing about the book is the photographs, which are from private collections and allowed to be copied in to the book. Anything that might belong in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not book could be found in these photos. Riggs even includes, in the back of the book, the collections the photos were borrowed from. Riggs refers to the photos in the story as snapshots of the children, and even admits that the photos came first, allowing the book to be built around them.