I'm starting to really like Middle Grade books. There's such a charm and cleanness about them. The story is all-important and there isn't that irritating boy-girl-like happening in every book. 
 This book, The Peculiar was written by a young man (no, actually, I think he was eighteen when it was published,) and for that age it's really quite impressive. His descriptions are fantastic, and the world is well-built. The history of the world is given without an info-dump. 
 The setting of England (London and Bath, in particular) was lovely. Like I said above, the descriptions were clear and detailed, and lovely. I definitely recognized parts of the London I saw when I visited this past summer (and, oh, how I want to go back!) 
 The plot was... not bad, but a bit thin. Not super thin, it was just pulled a bit too tight. 
 The characters were... quirky and kind of sweet, but not overly developed. Jelliby was definitely an unlikely hero, but he never really surprised me. He was humorous though, which always counts for something. 
 The end was exciting! There was some action and some magic. And a cliff-hanger. Grrr. I look forward to reading the second book though, and I hope we see a bit more of Hettie, in particular. (view spoiler)[And to see the Old Country. That would be interesting as well. (hide spoiler)]