I haven't seen the film adaptation for this, so I went into it without any preconceived expectations or judgements. I do know certain things were changed in the film and that pissed off a lot of fans.
I enjoyed this book. Was it incredible? Not particularly. But was it a fun little adventure with an engaging and original plot? Yeah, sure it was.

Setting
Set simultaneously in modern day and the 1940's. This is such a cool concept, that Jacob can jump between the different times. In the world of the peculiar children, it is forever 3rd September, each day resetting itself and replaying the day's events over and over. The children can do whatever they want. It doesn't matter because the loop will reset and the village people won't remember a thing the next day.

Characters
This has a great cast of characters. Emma was feisty and ballsy and I like that in female characters. Millard was probably my favourite. I don't know why, or what it was about him exactly, I just really took a liking to him.

Jacob was probably the most difficult one for me to like, if I'm honest. There were times when he came across as rude, and I don't like rude. I also found him annoyingly bratty in the beginning. He's a born rich kid who'll never have to work a day in his life, but moans like buggery cause his parents make in work for the family company (which he'll be running one day) and all he spends his days doing is trying to get fired (which will never happen cause it's a family business)

Poor little Jacob, precious little Jacob. Give me a break. Perhaps his parents made him work in the shop to teach him the value of hard work and actually earning money, not to mention taking responsibility and acting like an adult. Just saying . .

Now, Jacob's dad.

Spoiler

It seemed out of character and all too convenient when he started shouting at Jacob at the end of the book, making his decision to leave an easier one to make. I never got the impression that Jacob had a particularly bad home life.

Let's review the facts: His mum is materialistic; Okay, she's rich, she can afford to be. His dad is a flake and can't seem to finish a single project he starts; but yet again, they're rich, so he can afford to flit about wasting time and daydreaming about birds. But despite these factors, I believed that they loved their son. Their relationship wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it certainly wasn't broken enough for him to completely abandon his life so quickly, uncaring that there's a chance he'll never see them again, and uncaring that his parents will possibly have to live the rest of their lives never knowing what happened to their son. And imagine the guilt his dad will feel the next day when he wakes up and realises Jacob has gone.

Jacob's just a bit of a selfish dick is all.

Plot
It's so hard to find an original storyline these days, but interestingly this is one of those. It was quite refreshing to read a book and not have any idea where it was going or what would happen.

Jacob is an American boy with a badass Polish grandad (this gives me such feels already as I had a Polish grandad) His grandad is the one person he's closet to and the one he admires and adores. Then something happens to his grandad, and it's while Jacob is going through his things that he discovers that all the 'fairy stories' he told him as a boy might be true after all.

In an attempt to glean the truth of those stories, Jacob and his bird-watching dad travel to the Welsh island on which his grandad grew up on during the war. And soon Jacob learns a little more than he bargained for.

I loved the peculiar children and the time loop idea, but exploring that further, I really loved how the children could never leave the time loop, else their real ages would catch up with them and they'd start to grow old. A very creative and interesting twist, that.
I understood everything, except maybe the whole ymbyrne thing. I know they manipulate time and stuff, but I don't get why. Was that explained and I just missed it? Why can ymbryne turn into birds?

Writing Style
The pacing in this book is great. It read so quickly and I never felt bored with it. If it was longer, I might have, but this was a perfect length for the style and pacing it had. Very easy to read without reading too much like a kids book. Some of the words and language used suggests it's aimed at the slightly older side of YA, which is great. I hate when books are dumbed down.
The flow was also great, as was the dialogue and the slang. Being English, I enjoyed the British language used and how Jacob occasionally didn't know what certain phrases meant.
Couldn't fault the writing at all.

A huge part of this book's style is the pictures. When I picked this up in the shop and flicked through, I was immediately intrigued by the creepy black and white photos inserted throughout. I was almost certain this was going to be dark and unusual and jumped it up my TBR cause I was so interested.

Though the pictures are strange and at times a little disturbing and macabre, the book, unfortunately isn't. The pictures make it creepier than it is. Without them, I think the book would be lacking that je ne sais quoi that makes this book so popular and different.
Some pictures fit the story really well, and then others seemed so random that it was almost like the author wrote them into the storyline simply because he liked the photo. This somewhat pulled me from the story a bit, making it feel a little messy and unnecessary. Just because it's a cool photo , that doesn't mean it needs to be written into the story.

Final Impression
This was pretty good. I definitely think I'll give the next one a go. A very easy and fun read which didn't take me long at all. I'm quite interested to see how it continues, but think I would have enjoyed it more if it had that darker, creepier vibe that the photos suggest.