Books: The Conference of the Birds By Ransom Riggs (2020)

"With his dying words, H—Jacob Portman’s final connection to his grandfather Abe’s secret life entrusts Jacob with a mission: Deliver newly con­tacted peculiar Noor Pradesh to an operative known only as V. Noor is being hunted. She is the subject of an ancient prophecy, one that foretells a looming apocalypse. Save Noor—Save the future of all peculiardom. With only a few bewildering clues to follow, Jacob must figure out how to find V, the most enigmatic, and most powerful, of Abe’s former associates. But V is in hiding and she never, ever, wants to be found."

People are going to love or hate The Conference of the Birds, the fifth book in the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series by Ransom Riggs, as it moves slowly towards what should be book six sometime in 2021. Much like JK Rowling’s movie prequel series to the Harry Potter franchise, which has divided the fan base, one has to ask if this series was needed. Sure, it’s set in America, which opens a whole new universe of new Peculiar’s, but does it add anything to the first three books, which came to a satisfying conclusion in The Library of Souls? 

Part of the problem is the book lies flat, and is often dull between some remarkable violence for a kid’s book. Picking up shortly after the Map of Days, this one introduces a prophecy that brings back (spoiler) the villain from the first trilogy. Who was trapped in a loop he should NOT be able to get out of. Can’t say this is a great development. 

The book, as noted, has a bunch of savage-like violence mixed in and leaves a lot of the charming humor aside. There is a forced romance between Noor and Jacob, and it’s written very awkward-like (not in a good way).

Overall, The Conference of the Birds is the weakest book of the five, which maybe the reason Random House released the book three weeks after Christmas. They knew the reviews would be savage.